Mississippi
Mississippi House reopens door for teachers pay raise
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Days after legislators in the House and Senate killed more than a dozen teacher pay raise bills, members of the House education committee reanimated the conversation.
Committee chair Rep. Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, proposed a bill on March 6 that would bump public school teacher salaries by $5,000 across the board, with an additional $3,000 supplement for special education teachers. The legislation also includes a $6,000 boost for occupational therapists and licensed school counselors, Roberson explained to the House.
The nearly 500-page education package would also reform the role of school attendance officers, said Speaker Jason White in a Friday news conference, focusing their role more on coaching than punishment. Attendance officers would receive a $5,600 pay increase.
Retired teachers would also be allowed to go back to work while still receiving their full benefits from the state Public Employees’ Retirement System. They would negotiate their salary with the district, White said, and would not be eligible to accrue more retirement benefits.
The state would earmark $18 million for the education department to allocate for failing districts, White explained after discussions in the House, based on demonstrated improvements.
“The issue is not always a lack of money, sometimes it’s a lack of pointed emphasis on teacher improvement, stability there and retaining teachers,” he said. “Maybe the answer is a supplement to help schools retain their best and brightest. Maybe it’s a way to recruit teachers to those areas.”
Roberson, alongside his colleagues on the education committee, deleted all of the text in one of the last Senate education bills to come through the House and replaced it with the teacher pay raise and PERS provisions.
The bill also fixes mistakes in the PERS provisions, Roberson said, lowering the state employee retirement age from 62 to 60 and reducing the requirement back to 30 years of service. The service requirement for certified full-time first responders, White said, would be reduced to 25 years.
“If this all sounds familiar to you, it’s because y’all have voted on this at least twice and sent it to the Senate,” Roberson told the House Friday morning. “Unfortunately, this place has a tendency to create issues for us in terms of getting good work done. I’m not putting the blame on the Senate, not putting the blame on the House, but it’s about time we got the good work done.”
Roberson said he didn’t blame the Senate, but White was more than happy to criticize the other chamber. He boasted that the House was in session working Friday morning while the Senate took a long weekend, sending its members home on Thursday afternoon.
As White touted the strength of the House and its latest piece of legislation, he took shots at Senate leaders, including education committee chair Sen. Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann. He said that Hosemann wasn’t aligned with Mississippi’s Republican Party, telling attendees at his news conference that Hosemann sent “love letters” to people like Nancy Loome, one of the most outspoken advocates against school choice who has also campaigned against Republicans in local elections.
White derided members of the Senate for killing the House’s initial teacher pay raise bill, but the House did also kill a teacher pay raise bill that originated in the Senate and proposed a $2,000 increase for teachers, assistant teachers and college professors. When asked why the House had chosen to kill the bill instead of passing it through or amending it, White said the raise just wasn’t enough.
“This is not a hollow promise, and it’s not a political play,” White said. “The Senate education committee once again killed an education bill without so much as any deliberation. Your House is here. We beg our Senate colleagues to engage.”
Some Democrats in the House, wary of legislation coming out of the education committee after White’s universal school choice bill, questioned Roberson’s intentions with the bill and whether it included any of the contentious language that the chamber has argued over since the start of the session.
“I can’t think of one thing in this bill that you and I would not agree on,” Roberson told Rep. Kabir Karriem, D-Columbus. When all of the questions had been answered, Roberson closed his presentation simply. “Vote for this,” he urged his colleagues.
They obliged, voting unanimously in favor of the bill and opening the door one final time for a teacher pay raise this session.
Mississippi
Governor: At least 47 homes, 50 roads damaged by Mississippi storms, flooding – SuperTalk Mississippi
Gov. Tate Reeves has released updated damage assessments following the severe weather and flooding that inundated parts of southern Mississippi last week.
According to Reeves, assessments through the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency are ongoing, and disaster aid is still being distributed through a mix of federal, state, and local agencies, along with nonprofits. But numbers as of Monday morning showed dozens of homes and businesses damaged and even more public roads affected.

Among the counties with significant impacts are Covington, Forrest, George, Greene, Hancock, Jackson, Pearl River, Perry and Stone. Across those counties and others, at least 47 homes were affected, seven of which were completely destroyed. Nine businesses sustained damaged, six of which are considered major. One farm sustained major damage.
50 public roadways were affected, including four that are considered major and four that were completely destroyed. Two bridges sustained major damage, while two public buildings sustained minor damage.
Reeves said two rivers are in the moderate flood stage – Leaf River near McClain and the Pascagoula River at Graham Ferry.
15 other waterways are in the minor flood stage: Big Black River near Bentonia, Biloxi River near Lyman, Chickasawhay River at Enterprise, Chickasawhay River at Leakesville, East Hobolochitto Creek near Caesar, Pascagoula River at Merrill, Pearl River at Jackson, Pearl River near Pearl River, Pearl River near Philadelphia, Pearl River at Rockport, Strong River at D’Lo, Tallahala Creek at Laurel, Tuscolameta Creek at Laurel, West Hobolochitto Creek near McNeill, and Wolf River around Gulfport.


Damage reports could have worsened on Monday with additional rounds of severe weather in some parts of the state. The worst of the storms and floods came with the remnants of what was Tropical Storm Arthur late last week and into the weekend.
Mississippi
Family of 1-year-old killed by police at a Walmart in Mississippi wants video released
(AP) – A Mississippi family whose 1-year-old child was killed when police fired into a moving vehicle said Monday they want authorities to release video showing whether officers were in danger of being struck when one of them opened fire.
The shooting has sparked outrage in the small city of Senatobia, where some say it’s the latest in a series of troubling encounters between police and Black residents.
Kohen Wiley was riding with his mother and another woman in a Walmart parking lot on June 14 when police responded to a shoplifting call. The family says they were driving away, while the officers say the car was heading toward them.
“I watched my baby take his first breath, and I watched my baby take his last breath,” Vellesiya Wiley said at a news conference Monday.
The other woman in the car, whose name has not been released, suffered “critical injuries,” according to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which is handling the inquiry.
Standing alongside Kohen’s parents and grandparents at a local church, civil rights attorney Ben Crump told reporters Monday that the best way to determine whether the officers were at risk is to publicly release any body camera, dash camera or Walmart security camera video.
“If that is the truth, then show us that,” Crump said. “The longer you delay releasing the video, the more distrustful we become.”
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation declined to comment on what videos investigators have or whether they would be released, agency spokesperson Bailey Martin said Monday.
“This case has been made a top priority,” Martin said in an emailed statement, “and we currently have multiple agents working tirelessly to ensure every aspect of the investigation is thoroughly examined.”
The agency says the officers weren’t hurt. Senatobia Police Chief Harold Vanderford did not return a phone message seeking comment Monday.
State investigators gave an initial account of the shooting last week, saying that when Senatobia police arrived at the Walmart, they found two women and a child getting into a car and driving away.
“Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one. An officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene,” the agency statement said.
Kohen’s mother has said the shoplifting call was over a box of diapers that her friend was carrying — and that she believes her friend had paid for the diapers. State investigators declined to comment on those details.
Crump questioned why police didn’t let the car go and take down the license plate number.
“They were called over a box of diapers and a family now has to bury their baby,” Crump said Monday. “You cannot put those two things next to each other and call it reasonable policing.”
Crump also said an independent autopsy would be performed.
While there’s no question the child was shot by police, he said, details about the angles at which any bullets struck the child could yield clues as to whether the officer fired from in front of the car or off to the side — and therefore whether that officer was in any danger.
Policing expert Ian Adams, who teaches criminal justice at the University of South Carolina, told The Associated Press last week that police should know that “shooting into a moving vehicle is a very bad idea and one to be avoided at almost all costs,” noting the danger to passengers and other bystanders.
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Mississippi
Mississippi Association of Coaches Inducts Six New Members
Six new members were inducted into the Mississippi Association Coaches Hall of Fame on Friday.
Five electees and one surprise honorary inductee announced at the evening’s end.
Each says the MAC HOF is a special one and this is the ultimate honor for a coach in Mississippi.
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