Mississippi Today

‘Something has to change’: How one Smith County mom is fighting for special education services for her son

Published

2 years ago

June 21, 2023

Janiyah Wright didn’t find out an assault report was filed with the police against her 7-year-old son until days later, when she got a call from the youth court. Grayson hadn’t known it either.

He had an incident on March 10 at the Taylorsville Attendance Center — he said he got frustrated when other students in his general education class received candy for finishing a test and he did not. Grayson has diagnosed disabilities and said he took his test in the special education classroom. According to the police report, he took another student’s candy and was not able to calm himself down when the principal came to the room to intervene. In the hallway, he ripped decorations and student work off the wall and kicked multiple staff members, which resulted in the school calling the police to file an assault charge.

When Wright arrived at the school, she did not see any police presence, just the principal sweeping up torn paper and Grayson crying in the office. She said her son later told her he saw the police talking to school staff and other students, but did not understand why the officers were there. A youth counselor with the court told Wright the following Monday when he called that the court had instructed the police not to take Grayson to a detention center because of his age.

When she explained the situation to him that night, Wright said Grayson started crying and sweating because he was worried the police were coming to get him from their house. Now he is nervous around the school resource officer, something he is working on with his therapist.

“He’s seven, why did it go to this?” she said. “Now we’re going to have him afraid of police at seven? And it’s all because of him having a disability that he sometimes needs help with?”

Despite doing well academically, Grayson has regularly been disciplined at school for behavior problems, which his mother says are a result of the school not providing adequate services for his disabilities. She’s fought for him to have access to individual support in the classroom, and even brought in outside advocates to help, but Wright is considering leaving the school altogether because of the challenges she and her son have faced. Advocates say these issues are common across the state and country; research links barriers in accessing services to the quality of parent relationships with school personnel.

School district officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

Grayson, now 8, recently finished second grade, where he earned awards for his high scores on math and reading assessments. He was diagnosed with ADHD and oppositional defiance disorder at age 3 and has been receiving mental health treatment since. When he started kindergarten, he was also diagnosed with autism.

Wright said her son started getting regularly suspended at the end of first grade. Discipline reports from the school describe incidents where he was “defiant” by yelling, throwing objects, or hitting other people. This year, records from the school show Grayson was removed from his general education classroom 29 times over the course of about 75% of the school year. It’s unclear how the school is defining removals in this count, which can include out-of-school suspension, in-school suspension, being sent home early for the day, or being sent to the special education classroom as a form of discipline.

Federal data shows nationally, students with disabilities are suspended at a higher rate than their nondisabled peers, a pattern that is exacerbated by race. In the 2017-18 school year, the most recent year with available data, Black students with disabilities made up 2.3% of all students in the U.S. but accounted for 6.2% of all students receiving in-school suspensions and 8.8% of all students with out-of-school suspensions, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

In Mississippi, students with disabilities are also suspended at higher rates than their nondisabled peers, according to the same 2017-18 federal data set, but those gaps are smaller than in comparable national figures. The national pattern of Black students with disabilities being suspended at a higher rate also holds true in Mississippi.

Researchers have also noted that among students with disabilities, Black students lose roughly three times as many instructional days because of discipline as their white counterparts.

In the first two weeks of second grade, Grayson had an incident where he tore his papers and pushed over his desk, which landed on a teacher’s finger. He was suspended for three days. When he returned, Wright went to the office to talk about the incident and said she was met with unexpected proposals to completely rework his individualized education plan, or IEP.

“I drop him off, say ‘Grayson, have a good day,’ and then all of a sudden I’m in the middle of an IEP meeting,” Wright said. “Usually, with the IEP meetings, you let the parent know ahead of time.”

Per Mississippi Department of Education policy, schools are required to provide advance notice of IEP meetings to parents.

Under federal law, students with disabilities are entitled to learn alongside nondisabled students to the maximum extent possible. Students with disabilities receive accommodations or services through their individualized education plan, which parents and school personnel create together. The plan also sets annual goals for the student. If the student is having trouble meeting those goals, the team that created the plan is supposed to reconvene and determine what other supports are necessary.

Joy Hogge, executive director of Families as Allies, a Mississippi nonprofit that advocates for kids with behavioral health challenges, said there are numerous reasons why districts can struggle to meet students’ federally protected needs. These include confusion about the law, a lack of understanding about disabilities, prejudices against students with disabilities, and a lack of resources. She said that while it is not acceptable, districts are stretched very thin and may “let go” of obligations in this area “because it’s one of the hardest for them.”

After the incident in August where he pushed over his desk, school officials proposed removing Grayson from the classroom setting almost entirely according to recordings of meetings and related paperwork. The school suggested having him participate in class virtually, coming to the school once or twice a week to receive behavioral services and work through questions on his coursework. A decision was not reached in the initial meeting; Wright said she felt uncomfortable with such significant changes to his special education plan so early in the school year when the school had barely had a chance to implement the current plan.

“That’s when I started getting my advocate involved, because I sat in the parking lot, having just started a new job, just crying, (thinking) ‘Why is this happening?’” she said.

Wright connected with Leslie LaVergne, of the University of Southern Mississippi’s Institute for Disability Studies, a few weeks later in early September to help her navigate the process. LaVergne pointed out in meetings that these new proposals violated Grayson’s rights by not first exhausting options to have him learn alongside his peers without disabilities and asked for better monitoring of Grayson’s progress toward his goals to understand whether the current strategies were effective.

Wright also filed a complaint with the Mississippi Department of Education against the school district after its August proposal to remove him from the classroom setting. The district reached out to Wright later about completing paperwork to withdraw the complaint, according to text messages, something Wright said came as a surprise to her. The complaint was resolved in mediation months later.

Hogge, of Families as Allies, said her organization does not encourage families to withdraw complaints or agree to mediation, since, in their experience, conditions will often return to what they were before the complaint was filed.

“When families file formal state complaints, they often face tremendous pressure from districts to withdraw them or agree to mediation,” she said. “I think that tells us right there that districts are not wanting to go through what it would take to make the changes to get in compliance.”

After an updated evaluation by a behavioral specialist, Wright and the school reached an agreement at the end of September on new strategies to help Grayson manage his behavior. Despite this, his mom said conditions with the school did not improve as she would have hoped.

“From there it was hostility, it was like a vendetta, just because I brought somebody with me,” Wright said.

She described a runaround throughout the rest of the fall regarding the services that were being delivered. In some meetings, they had conversations about how Grayson was progressing in a certain type of therapy, but Wright said the school told her in a later meeting that the group providing this care was primarily coming to train teachers, not work with Grayson himself. He was also suspended more times throughout the fall, according to Wright’s records.

At the end of November, the school called Wright to tell her Grayson was suicidal and she needed to come pick him up, according to a notice Wright signed. When he was evaluated by Pine Grove Behavioral Health & Addiction Services later that day, the evaluator said he could return to school and continue his outpatient mental health treatment.

Wright requested additional meetings to rework the special education plan because Grayson was still getting in trouble for behavior problems. The document was ultimately revised multiple times over the course of the school year.

Grayson’s family describes him as shy, smart, and very observant. His grandma Deborah Wright, who lives next door, emphasized that he is very perceptive of tone. She said when people approach him from a place of love or care, they get a different response than a tone that makes him feel like he’s in trouble.

Janiyah Wright at her Taylorsville home where she resides with her son, Thursday, May 25, 2023.

Janiyah Wright expressed frustration that, in her view, school employees have not worked to build relationships with Grayson, leading to some of the incidents that have occurred.

“Something has to change because I’m not seeing this behavior at home, when he goes off with other people they’re not seeing this behavior, we go to the park, he plays with other kids, they’re not seeing this,” said Janiyah Wright. “This is happening at school. I just want y’all to build a rapport with my child, make a connection with him so that he can be able to come to you in those times of a meltdown or a tantrum.”

She said pushback from the school increased toward the end of the school year, starting with the police incident in March. In the police report, unidentified staff members said Grayson needs help they can’t provide and called Wright “uncooperative” in his care. When she tried to bring the incident up at the next IEP meeting, she said the principal declined to discuss it.

“Why can’t we discuss that when we’re supposed to be here as an IEP committee for this kid?” she said. “That alone tells me you’re not here for my child.”

Wright said the meeting was otherwise positive. Grayson’s special education team agreed to have a registered behavior technician join him in the classroom for the remainder of the school year.

The feeling was short-lived. Wright said she received a phone call from the youth court the next week where she was told the principal wanted to proceed with the assault charges, something the court said they couldn’t do because Grayson has disabilities.

Wright, who also brought in Disability Rights Mississippi, received a notice in mid-April that both of the advocates she was working with were banned from the Taylorsville Attendance Center. The letter cited “bullying, disrespect, aggression, and unprofessionalism” at the most recent special education team meeting as the reason. A recording of the meeting showed it was tense at points.

LaVergne, the advocate from the University of Southern Mississippi, declined to comment on the situation as it is “ongoing.”

Jane Walton, communications director for Disability Rights Mississippi, said their organization has never heard of advocates being banned before and the organization has filed a complaint with the Mississippi Department of Education to challenge the decision.

“While I can’t speak to the situation of this particular student, I think it gives a lot of insight into the struggles that parents and students with disabilities generally face trying to get the support that they need,” Walton said.

To Wright, this move felt like the school didn’t care about what was in the best interest of her child since they were unwilling to listen to the experts in this field.

Despite these events, Grayson said his experience at the end of the school year was positive. Wright attributed this to the presence of the behavior technician in the classroom with him, something she said she’d been requesting for a while and was glad to see implemented.

In the most recent special education team meeting, the tech pointed out that tone is a trigger for Grayson’s behaviors, echoing what Wright and her family already told the school about Grayson. She wishes this service could have been made available sooner.

“If the school was willing to obtain knowledge on a professional level, like my advocates were trying to provide, I just feel like a lot of the incidents could have been avoided,” she said.

After the year they’ve had, Wright is looking to move.

It feels like something she has to do, even though it would likely mean moving away from the support system of her family. Grayson has told her he thinks a new school would be better. She’s been looking for new jobs and inquiring about selling her house.

Despite this, she said she doesn’t want the school to think it was successful in pushing her out because she’s still concerned about other children with disabilities in the community.

“Every time I go (to the school), I’m not just fighting for my child,” Wright said. “I don’t want to be in the school district anymore. I would like to move, but in regard to the kids that are still having to live in Smith County, I feel like there should be a change.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Jackson’s performing arts venue Thalia Mara Hall is now open

Published

19 hours ago

June 30, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-06-30 17:29:00

by Maya Miller, Mississippi Today
June 30, 2025

After more than 10 months closed due to mold, asbestos and issues with the air conditioning system, Thalia Mara Hall has officially reopened.

Outgoing Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba announced the reopening of Thalia Mara Hall during his final press conference held Monday on the arts venue’s steps.

“Today marks what we view as a full circle moment, rejoicing in the iconic space where community has come together for decades in the city of Jackson,” Lumumba said. “Thalia Mara has always been more than a venue. It has been a gathering place for people in the city of Jackson. From its first class ballet performances to gospel concerts, Thalia Mara Hall has been the backdrop for our city’s rich cultural history.”

Thalia Mara Hall closed last August after mold was found in parts of the building. The issues compounded from there, with malfunctioning HVAC systems and asbestos remediation. On June 6, the Mississippi State Fire Marshal’s Office announced that Thalia Mara Hall had finally passed inspection.

“We’re not only excited to have overcome many of the challenges that led to it being shuttered for a period of time,” Lumumba said. “We are hopeful for the future of this auditorium, that it may be able to provide a more up-to-date experience for residents, inviting shows that people are able to see across the world, bringing them here to Jackson. So this is an investment in the future.”

In total, Emad Al-Turk, a city contracted engineer and owner of Al-Turk Planning, estimates that $5 million in city and state funds went into bringing Thalia Mara Hall up to code.

The venue still has work to be completed, including reinstalling the fire curtain. The beam in which the fire curtain will be anchored has asbestos in it, so it will have to be remediated. In addition, a second air-conditioning chiller needs to be installed to properly cool the building. Until it’s installed, which could take months, Thalia Mara Hall will be operating at a lower seating capacity of about 800.

“Primarily because of the heat,” Al-Turk said. “The air conditioning would not be sufficient to actually accommodate the 2,000 people at full capacity, but starting in the fall, that should not be a problem.”

Al-Turk said the calendar is open for the city to begin booking events, though none have been scheduled for July.

“We’re very proud,” he said. “This took a little bit longer than what we anticipated, but we had probably seven or eight different contractors we had to coordinate with and all of them did a superb job to get us where we are today.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Jackson’s performing arts venue Thalia Mara Hall is now open appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a straightforward report on the reopening of Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson, focusing on facts and statements from city officials without promoting any ideological viewpoint. The tone is neutral and positive, emphasizing the community and cultural significance of the venue while detailing the challenges overcome during renovations. The coverage centers on public investment and future prospects, without partisan framing or editorializing. While quotes from Mayor Lumumba and a city engineer highlight optimism and civic pride, the article maintains balanced, factual reporting rather than advancing a political agenda.

Mississippi Today

‘Hurdles waiting in the shadows’: Lumumba reflects on challenges and triumphs on final day as Jackson mayor

Published

24 hours ago

June 30, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @ayewolfe – 2025-06-30 17:08:00

by Anna Wolfe and Molly Minta, Mississippi Today
June 30, 2025

On his last day as mayor of Jackson, Chokwe Antar Lumumba recounted accomplishments, praised his executive team and said he has no plans to seek office again.

He spoke during a press conference outside of the city’s Thalia Mara Hall, which was recently cleared for reopening after nearly a year of remediation. The briefing, meant to give media members a peek inside the downtown theater, marked one of Lumumba’s final forays as mayor.

Longtime state Sen. John Horhn — who defeated Lumumba in the Democratic primary runoff — will be inaugurated as mayor Tuesday, but Lumumba won’t be present. Not for any contentious reason, the 42-year-old mayor noted, but because he returns to his private law practice Tuesday.

“I’ve got to work now, y’all,” Lumumba said. “I’ve got a job.”

Thalia Mara Hall’s presumptive comeback was a fitting end for Lumumba, who pledged to make Jackson the most radical city in America but instead spent much of his eight years in office parrying one emergency after another. The auditorium was built in 1968 and closed nearly 11 months ago after workers found mold caused by a faulty HVAC system – on top of broken elevators, fire safety concerns and vandalism.

“This job is a fast-pitched sport,” Lumumba said. “There’s an abundance of challenges that have to be addressed, and it seems like the moment that you’ve gotten over one hurdle, there’s another one that is waiting in the shadows.”

Outside the theater Monday, Lumumba reflected on the high points of his leadership instead of the many crises — some seemingly self-inflicted — he faced as mayor.

He presided over the city during the coronavirus pandemic and the rise in crime it brought, but also the one-two punch of the 2021 and 2022 water crises, exacerbated by the city’s mismanagement of its water plants, and the 18-day pause in trash pickup spurred by Lumumba’s contentious negotiations with the city council in 2023.

Then in 2024, Lumumba was indicted alongside other city and county officials in a sweeping federal corruption probe targeting the proposed development of a hotel across from the city’s convention center, a project that has remained stalled in a 20-year saga of failed bids and political consternation.

Slated for trial next year, Lumumba has repeatedly maintained his innocence.

The city’s youngest mayor also brought some victories to Jackson, particularly in his first year in office. In 2017, he ended a furlough of city employees and worked with then-Gov. Phil Bryant to avoid a state takeover of Jackson Public Schools. In 2019, the city successfully sued German engineering firm Siemens and its local contractors for $89 million over botched work installing the city’s water-sewer billing infrastructure.

“I think that that was a pivotal moment to say that this city is going to hold people responsible for the work that they do,” Lumumba said.

Lumumba had more time than any other mayor to usher in the 1% sales tax, which residents approved in 2014 to fund infrastructure improvements.

“We paved 144 streets,” he said. “There are residents that still are waiting on their roads to be repaved. And you don’t really feel it until it’s your street that gets repaved, but that is a significant undertaking.”

And under his administration, crime has fallen dramatically recently, with homicides cut by a third and shootings cut in half in the last year.

Lumumba was first elected in 2017 after defeating Tony Yarber, a business-friendly mayor who faced his own scandals as mayor. A criminal justice attorney, Lumumba said he never planned to seek office until the stunning death of his father, Chokwe Lumumba Sr., eight months into his first term as mayor in 2014.

“I can say without reservation, and unequivocally, we remember where we started. We are in a much better position than we started,” Lumumba said.

Lumumba said he has sat down with Horhn in recent months, answered questions “as extensively as I could,” and promised to remain reachable to the new mayor.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post 'Hurdles waiting in the shadows': Lumumba reflects on challenges and triumphs on final day as Jackson mayor appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article reports on outgoing Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s reflections without overt editorializing but subtly frames his tenure within progressive contexts, emphasizing his self-described goal to make Jackson “the most radical city in America.” The piece highlights his accomplishments alongside challenges, including public crises and a federal indictment, maintaining a factual tone yet noting contentious moments like labor disputes and governance issues. While it avoids partisan rhetoric, the focus on social justice efforts, infrastructure investment, and crime reduction, as well as positive framing of Lumumba’s achievements, aligns with a center-left perspective that values progressive governance and accountability.

Mississippi Today

Feds unfreeze $137 million in Mississippi education money

Published

1 day ago

June 30, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @devnabose – 2025-06-30 15:37:00

by Devna Bose, Mississippi Today
June 30, 2025

The federal government is restoring $137 million in education funds to Mississippi schools.

The U.S. Department of Education notified states last week that it would reinstate pandemic relief funds. The decision comes less than three months after the federal government revoked billions nationwide as part of Trump administration efforts to cut government spending.

State education agencies and school districts originally had until March 2026 to spend the money, but the federal government claimed that because the pandemic was over, they had no use for the money.

That March 2026 deadline has been reinstated following a series of injunctive orders.

A coalition of Democratic-led states sued the federal government in April over the decision to withhold the money. Then, a federal judge granted plaintiff states injunctive orders in the case, which meant those states could continue spending their COVID-relief dollars while other states remained restricted.

But the education department decided that wasn’t fair, wrote Secretary Linda McMahon in a letter dated June 26, so the agency was restoring the money to all states, not just the ones involved in the lawsuit.

“The original intent of the policy announced on March 28 was to treat all states consistently with regards to safeguarding and refocusing their remaining COVID-era grant funding on students,” she wrote. “The ongoing litigation has created basic fairness and uniformity problems.”

The Mississippi Department of Education notified school districts about the decision on Friday.

In the meantime, schools and states have been requesting exemptions for individual projects, though many from across the country have been denied.

Eleven Mississippi school districts had submitted requests to use the money to fund services such as tutoring and counseling, according to records requested by Mississippi Today, though those are now void because of the federal government’s decision.

Starting immediately, school districts can submit new requests to the state education department to draw down their federal allocation.

Mississippi Today previously reported that about 70 school districts were relying on the federal funds to pay for a range of initiatives, including construction projects, mental health services and literacy programs.

In 2023, almost half of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, pandemic relief money allocated to schools across the country, went to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs. A third went to operational and staff costs, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education.

Though Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann previously said that legislative leaders might consider helping agencies that were impacted by federal funding cuts, House Speaker Jason White said Monday that he did not have an appetite for directing state funds to pandemic-era programs.

Small school districts were already feeling the impact of the federal government’s decision to rescind the money. In May, Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School Board voted to terminate a contract on a school construction project funded with federal dollars.

The litigation is ongoing, so the funding could again be rescinded.

Clarification: A previous version of this article misstated the status of school districts’ pandemic relief money.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Feds unfreeze $137 million in Mississippi education money appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article primarily reports on the federal government’s decision to restore $137 million in education funds to Mississippi schools after a temporary freeze. It presents factual information about the timeline, legal actions, and responses from various state officials without adopting a partisan tone. The piece mentions the involvement of Democratic-led states suing the federal government and notes Republican-aligned efforts to cut spending, but does so in a balanced way focused on reporting events and statements rather than promoting a political viewpoint. The language remains neutral and factual, avoiding loaded or biased framing, making it a straightforward news report with centrist bias.