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

Indicted Jackson prosecutor’s latest campaign finance report rife with errors

Published

8 hours ago

July 18, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @ayewolfe – 2025-07-18 11:00:00

by Caleb Bedillion, The Marshall Project and Anna Wolfe, Mississippi Today
July 18, 2025

Tangled finances, thousands in personal loans and a political contribution from a supposed investor group made up of undercover FBI informants — this was all contained in a months-late campaign finance report from Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens.

Owens, a second-term Democrat in Mississippi’s capital city region, is fighting federal bribery charges, to which he’s pleaded not guilty. At the same time, his recent campaign finance disclosure reflects a pair of transactions that correspond with key details in the government’s allegation that Owens took money from undercover informants to pay off a local official’s debt.

Regarding payments from Facility Solutions Team — the company name used in the FBI sting — to former Jackson City Councilwoman Angelique Lee, Owens allegedly stated the need to “clean it out,” according to the indictment, which was unsealed in November.

“[L]ike we always do, we’ll put it in a campaign account, or directly wire it,” he said, the indictment claims. “[T]hat’s the only way I want the paper trail to look.”

Agents recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with Owens and other officials, and after his arraignment last year, Owens responded to the charges, saying, “The cherry-picked statements of drunken locker room banter is not a crime.”

Throughout 2024, a non-election year during which federal authorities allege Owens funneled thousands of dollars in bribes to Jackson’s city officials, Owens loaned his campaign more than $20,000, according to his campaign committee’s finance report. He’d won reelection in late 2023.

Owens and his attorneys did not respond to questions about his campaign finance report.

Owens’ report, filed May 30 – months late and riddled with errors – is the latest example of how Mississippi politicians can ignore the state’s campaign finance transparency laws while avoiding meaningful consequences. It’s a lax legal environment that has led to late and illegible reports, untraceable out-of-state money that defied contribution limits, and, according to federal authorities, public corruption with campaign finance accounts serving as piggy banks.

Enforcement duties are divided among many government bodies, including the Mississippi Ethics Commission. The commission’s executive director, Tom Hood, has long complained that the state’s campaign finance laws are confusing and ineffective.

“It’s just a mess,” Hood said.

Owens filed the annual report months past the Jan. 31 deadline, after reporting from The Marshall Project – Jackson revealed he had failed to do so. He paid a $500 fine in April.

He was also late filing in previous years, paying fines in some years and failing to pay the penalties in other years, according to records provided by the Ethics Commission.

The report, which Owens signed, is full of omissions or miscalculations, with no way to tell which is which. The cover sheet of the report provides the total amount of itemized contributions and disbursements for the year — $44,000 in and $36,500 out. But the body of the report lists the line-by-line itemizations for each, and when the Marshall Project – Jackson and Mississippi Today summed the individual itemizations, the totals didn’t match those on the cover sheet.

Based on the itemized spending detailed in the body of the report, Owens’ campaign should have thousands more in cash on hand than reported. In the report’s cover sheet, Owens also reported that he received more in itemized contributions during the year than he received in total contributions, which would be impossible to do.

While the secretary of state receives and maintains campaign finance reports, it has no obligation to review the reports and no authority to investigate their accuracy. Under state law, willfully filing a false campaign finance report is a misdemeanor. Charges, however, are rare.

Owens is the only local official in the federal bribery probe — which is set to go to trial next summer — who remains in office. The government alleged that Owens accepted $125,000 to split between him and two associates in late 2023 from a group of men he believed were vying for a development project in downtown Jackson. Owens accepted several thousand dollars more to funnel to public officials for their support of the project, the indictment alleges. The use of campaign accounts was an important feature of the alleged scheme, according to the indictment.

Owens divvied up $50,000 from Facility Solutions Team, or FST, into checks from various individuals or companies — allegedly meant to conceal the bribe — to former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba’s reelection campaign, the indictment charged.

Lumumba accepted the checks during a sunset cruise on a yacht in South Florida, the indictment alleged. His campaign finance report, filed earlier this year, reflected five $10,000 contributions near the date of the trip, with no mention of FST.

Lumumba, who lost reelection in April, has pleaded not guilty.

While the indictment accused Owens of saying that public officials use campaign accounts to finance their personal lives, state law prohibits the use of political contributions for personal use.

The indictment alleges Owens accepted $60,000 — some for the purpose of funneling to local politicians — from the men representing themselves as FST in the backroom of Owens’ cigar bar on Feb. 13, 2024. On his campaign finance report, he listed a $12,500 campaign contribution from FST two days later, the same day the indictment alleges he paid off $10,000 of former Councilwoman Lee’s campaign debt. Lee pleaded guilty to charges related to the alleged bribery scheme in 2024.

Also on Feb. 15, 2024, the campaign finance report Owens filed shows a $10,000 payment to 1Vision, a printing company that used to go by the name A2Z Printing, for the purpose of “debt retirement.” Lee had her city paycheck garnished starting in 2023 to pay off debts to A2Z Printing, according to media reports. No mention of Lee was made in the campaign finance report filed by Owens. The printing company did not respond to requests for comment.

Campaigns are allowed to contribute money to other campaigns or political action committees. If Owens’ committee used campaign funds to pay off debt owed by Lee’s campaign, the transaction should have been structured as a contribution to Lee’s campaign and reported as such by both campaigns, said Sam Begley, a Jackson-based attorney and election law expert who has advised candidates about their financial disclosures.

The alleged debt payoff on behalf of Lee is not the first time Owens has described transactions on his campaign finance filings in ways that may obscure how his campaign is spending money. Confusing or unclear descriptions of spending activity are common on campaign finance reports across the state.

Owens previously reported that in 2023, he paid $1,275 to a staff member in the district attorney’s office who also worked on his campaign. The payment was labeled a reimbursement, which Owens explained in a May email to The Marshall Project – Jackson was for expenditures this person made on behalf of the campaign, “such as meals for volunteers/workers, evening/weekend canvassers, and election day workers.”

State law requires campaigns to itemize all contributions and expenses over $200. Begley said he believes Owens’ committee should have itemized any payments over $200 made by anyone on behalf of the campaign.

Upfront payments, with the expectation of repayment by the campaign, might also be considered a loan, according to a spokesperson for the secretary of state. Campaigns are barred from spending money to repay undocumented loans.

The state Ethics Commission has addressed undocumented loan repayments in several opinions, outlining the required documentation to make repayments legal.

Since 2018, the Ethics Commission has had the power to issue advisory opinions upon request to help candidates and campaigns sort through laws that Hood, the commission’s executive director, said aren’t always clear.

The commission has issued just six opinions in seven years.

“I was surprised in the first few years that there weren’t more,” Hood said. “But now it seems to be clear that for whatever reason, most people don’t think they need advice.”

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

The post Indicted Jackson prosecutor's latest campaign finance report rife with errors 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: Center-Left

The article critically examines the conduct of Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, a Democrat, and highlights systemic weaknesses in Mississippi’s campaign finance laws. While the reporting is grounded in factual evidence, legal documents, and expert commentary, the tone leans toward exposing flaws in enforcement and transparency—issues typically emphasized by center-left or reform-oriented journalism. The article does not display partisan rhetoric or ideological framing beyond its focus on accountability and legal integrity. Its publication by Mississippi Today and The Marshall Project, both known for investigative work with slight progressive leanings, further supports a Center-Left classification.

Mississippi Today

Whooping cough cases increase in Mississippi

Published

23 hours ago

July 17, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-07-16 11:25:00

by Gwen Dilworth, Mississippi Today
July 16, 2025

The Mississippi State Department of Health issued an alert Wednesday that cases of pertussis, or whooping cough, are climbing in the state.

The year-to-date number of cases in Mississippi ballooned to 80 as of July 10. That compares to 49 cases in all of 2024.

No whooping cough deaths have been reported. Ten people have been hospitalized related to whooping cough, seven of whom were children under 2 years old.

Cases have largely been clustered in northeast Mississippi. The region accounts for 40% of cases statewide.

The nation has also seen rising rates of whooping cough, though cases have been climbing less steeply than in Mississippi. About 15,000 whooping cough cases have been reported nationwide this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The highly contagious respiratory illness is named for the “whooping” sound people make when gasping for air after a coughing fit. It may begin like a common cold but can last for weeks or months. Babies younger than 1 year are at greatest risk for getting whooping cough, and can have severe complications that often require hospitalization.

Whooping cough cases fell in Mississippi after the COVID-19 pandemic began, but have since rebounded. This is likely due to people now taking fewer mitigation measures, like masking and remote learning, State Epidemiologist Renia Dotson said at the state Board of Health meeting July 9.

The majority of cases – 76% – have occurred in children. Of the 73 cases reported in people who were old enough to be vaccinated, 28 were unvaccinated. Of those 28 people, 23 were children.

“Vaccines are the best defense against vaccine preventable diseases,” State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney said after the State Board of Health meeting.

Mississippi has long had the highest child vaccination rates in the country. But the state’s kindergarten vaccination rates have dropped since a federal judge ruled in 2023 that parents can opt out of vaccinating their children for school on account of religious beliefs.

The pertussis vaccination is administered in a five-dose series for children under 7 and booster doses for older children and adults. The health department recommends that pregnant women, grandparents and family or friends that may come in close contact with an infant should get booster shots to ensure they do not pass the illness to children, particularly those too young to be vaccinated.

Immunity from pertussis vaccination wanes over time, and there is not a routine recommendation for boosters.

State health officials also encourage vaccination against other childhood illnesses, like measles. While Mississippi has not reported any measles cases, Texas has had recent outbreaks.

The Mississippi Health Department offers vaccinations to children and uninsured adults at county health departments.

Correction 7/16/25: This story has been updated to reflect that the age of the seven hospitalized children is under 2 years old.

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

The post Whooping cough cases increase in Mississippi appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article presents a straightforward, fact-based account of rising whooping cough cases in Mississippi without ideological framing. It cites official sources such as the Mississippi State Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, offering context, statistics, and public health recommendations. While it mentions a 2023 federal court ruling that allowed religious exemptions to vaccinations—a potentially contentious topic—it does so factually without editorializing or assigning blame. The overall tone remains neutral and informative, aligning with public health reporting rather than political advocacy.

Mississippi Today

Driver’s license office moves to downtown Jackson

Published

1 day ago

July 17, 2025

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-07-17 12:31:00

by Simeon Gates, Mississippi Today
July 17, 2025

The driver’s license office in Jackson has moved downtown as the Mississippi Department of Public Safety prepares to shift its headquarters from the capital city to suburban Rankin County.

The department last month announced it was closing the license office that had operated for decades next to its headquarters just off Interstate 55 at Woodrow Wilson Avenue, near the VA Medical Center.

The new office is at 430 State St., near Jackson’s main post office and a few blocks from the Capitol.

A logo marks the main entry of a driver’s license office in downtown Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday, July 8, 2025.

“This location provides easier access for those who live and work in the area and ensures we can continue offering vital driver services in a more convenient and accessible space within the city of Jackson,” said Bailey Martin, spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety.

Mississippi has 35 driver’s licenses offices. The new Jackson office is in a former car dealership – an all-white building with floor-to-ceiling windows that fill the space with sunlight. On Wednesday, customers sat on black benches, chatting or scrolling on their phones while waiting to be called up to get or renew a license.

Carlos Lakes of Yazoo City speaks after renewing a driver’s license in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.

Carlos Lakes, 34, from Yazoo City, said he first went to the Richland office that issues commercial driver’s licenses but couldn’t get what he needed there. He said he then went to the old office on Woodrow Wilson and saw a note on the door showing the office had moved.

“So, it’s been about two hours of running around,” said Lakes, a truck driver.

He said the customer service at the new office was good, aside from the long wait time.

Medical student Seth Holton, 22, had a similar experience. He drove in from Flora, in Madison County, and went to the Woodrow Wilson location before finding the new office. He said it was his first time getting his license renewed.

Seth Holton of Flora waits to renew his driver’s license in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.

“I think it looks nice,” Holton said of the new location. “I think it’s organized. There’s good seating. It’s pretty quick, for the most part.”

Student Marquerion Brown, 19, posed for photos with a large cardboard frame of a driver’s license in the corner of the new office. He’d just passed his driver’s test for the first time.

“I’m just lucky and thankful to get this one this time,” Brown said. He hadn’t decided where he wanted to drive first. “I got a lot of places in mind.”

Marquerion Brown speaks after receiving his driver’s license in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 17, 2025.

The Department of Public Safety headquarters will open in Pearl within the next year, near the state’s crime lab, fire academy and emergency management agency.

Martin said the new headquarters will allow the department to have its divisions in one place – the highway patrol, bureau of investigation, bureau of narcotics, homeland security office and commercial transportation enforcement.

“As such, this move will enhance operational efficiency with other public safety partners, improve interagency collaboration, and position the department for future growth,” Martin said.

The headquarters move has been in the making for over five years. Public safety officials said the old building on Woodrow Wilson fell into disrepair after years of neglect.

Sen. David Blount asks questions during a TANF hearing at the State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, December 15, 2022.

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, was part of a group of lawmakers who proposed moving the headquarters to a different location inside Jackson.

“I personally think that the state government should be based in the state capital,” he said.

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

The post Driver's license office moves to downtown Jackson appeared first on mississippitoday.org

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article from *Mississippi Today* offers a factual and neutral report on the relocation of the Jackson driver’s license office and the broader headquarters move by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. It includes quotes from officials and everyday citizens without editorializing or promoting a specific viewpoint. The inclusion of Sen. David Blount’s comment presents a mild political contrast, but it is balanced and not framed in a confrontational or ideological way. The tone remains focused on public service logistics and community impact rather than political narrative.