State Lawmaker Shadows High School Senior

Senator Hillman Frazier of Jackson has been shadowing Jim Hill High School student, Aleighsa Alexander this week.

A Mississippi State Senator went back to high school this week. MPB's Lawayne Childrey reports how what he learned could influence how lawmakers fund education.

For the past two days Senator Hillman Frazier of Jackson has been shadowing a Jim Hill High School student. Frazier says it wasn't to learn reading, writing or arithmetic but to learn more about the day to day needs of the school system and the impact of budget cuts on students.

"She started out her day taking trigonometry and they had to work through some very difficult problems without the calculator. What I'm trying to do, I'm trying to put a face to these number that we have to deal with everyday. We're dealing with the budget right now and education took a cut last month from the governor. I wanna make sure we make the right decision in terms of not cutting off the options these students have."

Historically art, music and physical education programs are the first to be cut. Even though Jim Hill senior Aleighsa Alexander excels in advanced placement courses like micro economics and English Literature Composition she knows the importance of certain electives like band.

"Cause those are scholarships. Cause I'm also in choir and soccer and so you know we gotta have funds to be successful in that. Cause English and science are the only ones that I like, really do well in and the honor society and stuff. So I'mma have to come out of pocket without band but most likely with band I won't."

Over the past year the Jackson Public School District, has had to consolidate some bus routes and reduce other services just to make ends meet. But according to JPS Superintendent, Dr. Lonnie Edwards an additional 6 million dollars in cuts could mean losing key personnel like nurses and counselors. That's why he says he wants lawmakers will consider how valuable these services are especially to urban schools.

"We have more children, we have homeless children. So we have the social issues that they have to encounter, health problems and many others. So in our district we find ourselves holding to every dollar we possibly can to meet the needs of our students."

Lawmakers will be back in session in January to make their final budget decisions. For MPB News, I'm Lawayne Childrey.