Ken McCoy served on the Madison County School Board for over 20 years before taking time off and is now running again for the District 1 seat against current board member Jason Dean who has spent his career in the education field.
The two will face off on election day, Tuesday, November 8.
McCoy said, although he took time off because he had a job that had him on a plane two to three times a week and couldn’t be as present as he wanted, he always intended to return to serve on the board. With his grandchildren beginning within MCS next year, this was the right time for him.
“I’ve been off the board for six or seven years now, but I came through the MCS system grades 1-12, went to college at Mississippi State, and I came back shortly after that and started serving on the board in 1997.”
His top priorities revolve around the new schools needing to be built and the hiring of new staff and administration as the current ones retire.
“I think it’s fun to see where we were because we grew by 40 percent while I was on the board, and we built 10 new schools with $180 million in bonds and there was never an increase in our taxes,” McCoy said. “I want to go back in and continue to see the success. Nothing against the board that is there now, but they do not have the experience that I would bring in as far as bond issues go.”
McCoy said there is a new sixth grade school currently in the works, but MCS is going to need more schools and he can help with that.
“The portable classrooms in trailers is something that has always been a sore issue with our community and, of course, sometimes we have to do it because we can’t get a building up fast enough,” McCoy said. “I know they are going to need to build the sixth grade building, but in the future there are still going to be more buildings to be built.”
His other concern is that a lot of people will be retiring soon because they were there during the time he originally served.
“There will be a lot of turnover, and I know the majority of the staff,” McCoy said. “I would like to be part of the hiring process. One of the things I’d like to see done a little better is preparing our staff who are at the school now for their next roles doing everything we can to train them and develop them. I want to be sure we have the right people in place. I want to make sure we replace the great administration, principals and staff we currently have when they retire and continue on that road.”
McCoy said another thing he stands for is choice when it comes to immunizations and vaccines – even recently speaking at a Take Mississippi Back meeting last week about this matter and the books in the school library.
“If elected, McCoy said he would like to be a bit more visible this go around.
“Even though our role is behind the scenes and it should be – it is not one that we need to be in every school, every minute because we need to let our administrators and teachers run the schools – one of the things is I traveled a lot, so I wasn’t there for some of the things and that will be different this time.”
Current board member Dean took over representing District 1 last year after the previous board member moved out of the district. The board interviewed Dean among other candidates and he was chosen as the representative knowing he would have to be elected the following year.
He attended the University of Southern Mississippi and went on to earn his doctorate in education at the University of Mississippi. He joined Governor Haley Barbour’s administration as his education advisor and, following Hurricane Katrina, began lobbying for recovery funds in Washington, D.C., which led him to a White House Fellowship working in the Department of Education. He later accepted positions with the Mississippi Economic Council and the state’s Chamber of Commerce. Dean was also appointed to the State Board of Education.
With three children in school, his interest has now turned local and to the school board. “To me, this is an opportunity to represent their voices. In a lot of ways, I feel like I should have started here at this local level. I’ve seen it at the national level and at the state level but, at the local level, the impact is so much more profound and obvious.”
Dean said it is exciting to be able to engage with the community and ask what they would like to see out of their schools. He wants to be able to do this with current issues.
“We’re going to be looking at hearing from the public about issues concerning year-round school, which is an emerging topic. I’m particularly interested in how do we better integrate career technical education and secondary education experience. I’m interested in how we flatten the differences between secondary and post secondary education for the students going on to get advanced skills training beyond high school, which is mostly dual credit, and what are our policies around that to make it equitably available? Those are big issues.”
Dean said another one of his priorities is the school facilities.
“We really need to be focused on keeping our facilities at the level we all expect. We have some opportunities to have some new buildings, but we also need to continue to take care of our other schools. Some are getting to be pretty old, 20 or 30 years – and that’s a long time when you have kids going through 180 days a year. It takes its toll.”
As Dean has been on the board for the past year, he said the single biggest issue they’ve accomplished without question is the district has overall increased their scores throughout the pandemic – testing better than before covid.
“In this current year, 18-20 schools went up in their scores from before covid,” Dean said. “That is due to the laser-like focus of our administrators, parents, teachers and, of course, students. That can’t be said enough, and it’s contrary to the national narrative.”
As far as anything Dean would do differently if elected this year, he said they can always improve. “Our goal is to make every student be successfully prepared for life after graduation, whether that’s college or career. Until every student that’s enrolled in Madison County Schools is performing at their capabilities, I don’t think you can be satisfied. My education philosophy is very simple. Kids live up to adult expectations.
“If you look at, for example, Luther Branson Elementary School, they outperform Madison Station Elementary where my kids go to school. If you look at the demographics, most people would think they wouldn’t with it being very rural and low-income, but they are beating other schools in the district. That just says the kids can do it, and it doesn’t matter what your demographics are.”
