State Rep. Jansen Owen (Photo by Jeremy Pittari, Magnolia Tribune)
- State Rep. Jansen Owen, the bill’s author, plans to compile more information on the subject and bring it back before the House next session.
A measure that would have made all public school board members in Mississippi elected died on the calendar Thursday without a vote in the full House, much to the chagrin of the bill’s author, State Rep. Jansen Owen (R).
“After passing the bill [in the House Education Committee], the consensus was present in the House to move it forward,” Owen told Magnolia Tribune on Friday. “What we didn’t realize was how widespread the lack of uniformity is between districts. Some elect a few members and not others. Some elect them for four-year terms or six-year terms. The election years vary widely.”
Owen said many of the districts fail to hold elections, causing members to hold over beyond their terms.
“Even appointed members end up not re-appointed but hold over beyond their terms,” Owen said.
Ultimately, Rep. Owen said to make all of the state’s school boards elected, “we must also have uniformity and to get it right, we need more time to study the differences between districts.”
As previously reported, it is not the first time such legislation has been filed in the Mississippi Legislature. Similar bills have been proposed and allowed to die for well over a decade.
Under Owen’s proposed bill, HB 1292, all public school board members would have become elective offices for four-year terms. The current local school board would have determined whether its election cycle would run concurrently with the statewide general election or with the presidential election, and every four years thereafter, respectively. In addition, the current school board would have determine whether its members are to be elected from single member election districts or elected as members at-large from the territorial boundaries that constitute the local school district.
Owen said he plans to offer similar legislation next session after compiling more information on the subject.
Frank Corder
