Jackson Free Press

There's never a slow news week in Jackson, Miss., and last week was no exception. Here are the local stories JFP reporters brought you in case you missed them:

1. The Better Together Commission, with help from parent volunteers, hosted a series of listening sessions this week to begin the community-input component of their study of Jackson Public Schools.
2. Jackson Public Schools is not likely to be a part of the state's new Achievement School District based on the Mississippi Board of Education members' discussion Thursday.
3. Mississippi ranks 50th for the second year in a row in the United Health Foundation's health rankings. The foundation specializes in clinical expertise and health data, focused on making the country heathier.
4. Myrlie Evers, who saw her husband gunned down outside their Jackson home on June 12, 1963, expressed both anger and the need to follow Medgar’s advice to “rise above your hatred, and turn it into something positive.”
5. Downtown Jackson’s Smith Park is undergoing its second phase of renovations and is currently closed to the public. Stakeholders want to revitalize the park, but do not want to displace homeless residents that make use of it.
6. The real excitement at the 2 Museums happened when the doors opened to an excited and curious public. Many of the visitors to the civil-rights museum—most of them black—had driven hours, from all corners of Mississippi.
7. A group of Jackson Public Schools JROTC cadets demonstrated drills at the JROTC headquarters in northwest Jackson last week.
8. Jackson Public Schools has 288 teacher vacancies in the district, currently filled with 233 limited-service teachers. The district must fill those vacancies by July 2018 to clear a state accreditation standard.
9. The House of Representatives is one member shy of a full house, after a series of retirements and resignations in the off-season.
10. Myrlie Evers cut the red ribbon outside the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum that opened on Saturday. She also sat through remarks from President Trump at a private ceremony before the public opening.

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