12-03-2025
Mississippi House kills bill to allow students to more easily move between school districts
House leadership on Wednesday allowed a bill to die that would have given parent's the ability to more easily transfer their child from one public school district to another.
The legislation, a "portability" initiative that was embedded into a Senate education bill, would have allowed students to transfer between public school districts without the approval of their district of origin, and it allowed that child's portion of state K-12 education funding to follow them to the new district.
When explaining why the bill died on the House calendar by Wednesday's deadline, House Education Chairman Rob Roberson, R-Starkville, and portability advocate Rep. Jansen Owen, R-Poplarville, both said the bill would have been challenged and killed with a point of order, which seeks to challenge whether a bill's language is germane to its original intent.
"Anytime you have a bill, whether it's something that changes a minor thing or a major thing in education, you're going to have people for and against," Roberson said. "Unfortunately, portability is dead. We will come back next year, and we'll be talking about it again."
Owen told reporters on the House floor that pressures both inside and outside of the legislature caused the bill's death. He later said he intends to pursue the legislation again next year.
School choice update: MS House lawmakers push school choice as Senate chairman kills proposals. Read details
"This had nothing to do with public dollars going anywhere but back to other public schools," Owen said. "The whole idea that this is to be lumped in with the (Children's Promise Act, a school choice bill) or anything else is (ridiculous). This was the most basic way to give parents the most basic amount of choice. The only thing we were doing here was telling a school district they can't tell me no when I want to send my kid to another public school district."
Earlier this session, the piece of legislation in question, Senate Bill 2618, had been amended in the House Education Committee to include the House portability bill after the Senate had killed several House education priorities for the year.
The issue was that the Senate bill only dealt with school attendance officers, and a portability piece was not germane.
The bill was the last of a slew of attempts by House leadership to give parents more options for their child's education.
More school choice news: Why universal school choice is unlikely to pass in 2025 MS Legislature? Read here
The topic is often referred to as school choice, which typically has to do with using government funds to give parents more options with K-12 education, including both public-to-public school district transfers, expansion of charter schools and sending public dollars toward private education.
House Speaker Jason White, R-West, who made education reforms such as school choice one of his top priorities for the year, laid the blame on a lack of support inside the legislature, lobbying against the idea and a lack of an opportunity for the Senate chamber to fully consider portability.
"I think more and more of my colleagues here in the House and even in the Senate, if they're given an opportunity to express where they are in the form of voting for it or against it, I think you're going to see those (anti portability) attitudes change," White said. "(This issue) doesn't necessarily fall purely along party lines or racial lines. I think you're starting to see real, meaningful adult conversations among lawmakers about, 'Hey, what is best for kids and parents'…You're hearing those conversations."
When the House portability bill originally passed the House chamber, it passed mostly along party lines, with less than a handful of Democrats voting in favor and a few Republicans voting against the measure.
Throughout the session, Senate Education Chairman Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, has killed both Senate and House proposals to give parents more school choice by way of both portability and other pieces of legislation that would allow public dollars going toward private schools.
Grant McLaughlin covers the Legislature and state government for the Clarion Ledger. He can be reached at gmclaughlin@ or 972-571-2335.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: MS House kills school district portability bill
