A Mississippi judge has blocked a state law that allocated $10 million of federal pandemic relief funding to infrastructure grants for qualifying private schools in the state.
The ruling was handed down by Hinds County Chancery Judge Crystal Wise Martin. Her ruling comes after the nonprofit group Parents for Public Schools filed their lawsuit on June 15th against the state legislator.
The lawsuit was prompted after the state's Republican-controlled House and Senate passed two bills in April. One bill established a grant program that allowed private schools to apply for grants in order to fund a variety of infrastructure programs including paying for water, broadband, and other facility improvements. A second bill allocated $10 million of federal pandemic relief dollars to help fund the program.
Under the grant program, any qualifying in-state private school that belonged to the Mid-South Association of Independent Schools was allowed to apply for a grant of up to $100,000. The grant did not have to be paid back, and public schools were ineligible to apply for the infrastructure grants.
On the other hand, public schools that wanted to improve their facilities could apply for funding through state-created programs that offered interest-free loans. Unlike the private school grants, however, these loans had to be paid back within ten years.
After the bills were signed into law by Republican Governor Tate Reeves, the nonprofit organization Parents for Public Schools argued that the bills were a violation of state law. The group argued that under Section 208 of the state's Constitution, the use of public, taxpayer dollars can not be used for schools that are not designated as “a free school.”
The nonprofit organization also argued that using public money to fund a private school adversely impacts public schools and the students they serve. In her ruling, Judge Martin explained that “taxpayer funding for education is finite.”
The nonprofit organization filed its lawsuit with the guidance of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi, the Mississippi Center for Justice, and Democracy Forward. Following Judge Martin's ruling, democracy forward attorney Will Bardwell described the ruling as a “victory for the Mississippi Constitution and every person who cares about public education in the state.” Bardwell added, “When the state legislature violated the constitution by directing public money to private schools, it did more than merely continue Mississippi’s shameful history of undermining its children’s public schools. It broke the law, period.”
In her ruling, Martin also drew attention to a 1997 law that created a complex funding formula for the state's public education system known as the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. Under this program, a complex formula was designed to make sure that all schools received adequate funding to meet mid-level academic standards. Despite being established nearly two decades ago, the formula has been fully funded for only two years by state legislators.
Bardwell also touched on the state's current underfunding of public schools, explaining that “Mississippi’s public schools struggle to keep up with the rest of the nation’s public schoolchildren. We just can’t afford to divert our already limited resources from public schools to private schools.”
Judge Martin also made sure to point out that on the same day oral arguments were being heard for the case, a local area high school dismissed students early during the school day because of water pressure issues in the building.
Days later, the same high school transitioned to online-only classes after the high school lost water for the next couple of days. Judge Martin explained in her ruling, “This court need only sit in Hinds County and take notice of current events to find that exclusive public infrastructure funding for private schools adversely affects public school students differently than the general public.”
Mississippi’s ACLU welcomed the ruling, sharing, “We are elated with today’s ruling, which affirms our argument that the Mississippi Constitution explicitly forbids appropriating public funds to private schools.”
