Chickasaw Consolidation Heading To Governor

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Lawmakers are ordering the Houston and Chickasaw County school districts to merge by 2021, but are leaving the neighboring Okolona district out of the consolidation.

House and Senate members voted Wednesday to send Senate Bill 2463 to Gov. Phil Bryant.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Gray Tollison, an Oxford Republican, says he hopes Okolona can be combined with the other two districts later, but says Okolona’s problems are too severe for the other districts to absorb now.

Lawmakers ordered the Perry County and Richton districts to study merging, sending Senate Bill 2461 to Bryant.

Language merging Lumberton schools with Lamar County was stripped from the second bill, but Tollison says he expects that plan to go ahead voluntarily. An earlier law sought to split Lumberton between Lamar County and Poplarville.