The Mississippi governor has proposed funding to arm teachers and staff in public schools, as well as to set up a patriotic education curriculum to combat divisive ideologies.
In addition, Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, proposed a parental Bill of Rights.
“Guardians will be trained to provide armed intervention in the event of an active shooter threat,” Reeves said. “They will be employees of the school district and nominated by the district to be trained and certified by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety (DPS).”
The guardians will receive a monthly stipend of $500, issued a firearm, a holster, and ammunition by DPS.
Additionally, Reeves proposed $1 million to identify and provide an annual threat assessment for every school across the state.
Law enforcement in Uvalde, Texas, has been criticized for its delayed response to the May 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, when former student Salvador Ramos fatally shot 19 students and two teachers and wounded 17 others.
Patriotic Education Fund
In response to the nationwide trend of critical race theory (CRT)—which many teachers have said is sabotaging traditional education and lowering math, science, and English scores in public schools—Reeves proposed allocating $5 million to the Patriotic Education Fund.CRT is a Marxist-based philosophy that claims society is a class struggle between oppressors and the oppressed—specifically labeling white people as the oppressors and all other races as the oppressed.
Reeves called CRT a “factually inaccurate narrative about our nation’s history” that is being brought into the classroom for the purpose of “painting America as nothing more than a collective of colonizers.”
“No country can survive if it raises its children to despise the inherent values upon which it was founded,” Reeves said.
Parents’ Bill of Rights
To give parents more authority over their children’s education, Reeves proposed a parental Bill of Rights to address what he said he saw as a usurpation of the role of parents by school districts across the country that imposed “controversial, experimental social science experiments on children,” despite the objection of parents.“On decisions surrounding the usage of names, pronouns, or health matters, schools have an obligation to adhere to the will of the parents,” Reeves said. “It is the parents who have ultimate responsibility for raising their children as they see fit.”
Reeves added that there’s no place for school policies that force students and teachers to refer to a child by a name or pronoun that fails to correspond with the child’s biological sex.
Advancing the Pro-Life Agenda
Reeves also proposed tax credits “to advance the new pro-life agenda.”His proposals include childcare and pregnancy resource center tax credits, as well as an official partnership with Lifeline Children’s Services (LCS).
LCS is a non-profit organization that provides supportive measures such as pregnancy counseling, adoption, and education.
“This partnership would not cost anything—as the organization does not accept state or federally funded contracts—and would help to better meet the needs of vulnerable children across Mississippi,” Reeves said.
Lawmakers return to the state Capitol in January for the start of the legislative session.
