Video: U.S. Department of Justice Visits One Local School District

CHOCTAW COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)-Members from the Department of Justice were in Choctaw County on Wednesday to meet with school leaders in the district.

On Tuesday night, they met with concerned parents about the Choctaw County School District.

Schools in Choctaw county have been under a desegregation order since the 1970’s.

Now, they want to drop the order and stand on their own, but before they can do that, the DOJ must meet with school leaders and have a community meeting with residents before moving forward.
“It’s a lot that can be changed in Choctaw County from what I see,” said William Hoskin, a concerned parent who has two children in the Choctaw County School District.

However, parents like Hoskin tell WCBI changing the current desegregation order is something that shouldn’t happen.

“I think they should not because I’d be fact, number one everybody as a whole we already struggling,” he said.

Hoskin said he’s witnessed a lot of mistreatment and discrimination among his kids as well as other minority students in the district, and whenever parents speak out, their kids then becomes a target at school.

“Anything you say these days they’ll try to bring it against the kids,” said Hoskin.  “I mean it’ll be alright if you coming to me, but when you take it out on the kids see that’s a different spot.”

Now, parents are looking for a solution. They’ve voiced their concerns to members of the DOJ, now they’re hoping something can be done.

“It’s got to be something, a loop hole they done seen that they didn’t like for them to be investigating it anyway,” said Hoskin.

“The department of justice has to come in and review what we’ve done and what we are doing so that they can look at our request to come from up under the federal desegregation order and go to a Unitarian system,” said Michael Thomas, who’s member on the Choctaw County school board.

Thomas tell WCBI there were no phone calls or incidents led to the DOJ making a visit to the schools.

“No I think they’re coming in our response to the request of Unitarian status,” he said.

Thomas said this is the first they’ve heard of these problems and concerns among parents, but said the board and district are both working to address all of these concerns and issues.

“Give everybody a equal chance, give blacks an equal chance as well as the whites,” said Hoskin.

“I certainly don’t perceive that there’s any racism or discrimination in our district. We’ve done everything we can do to insure that every students has equal rights,” said Thomas.

Thomas said the DOJ will be looking at school distribution, teacher distribution and academics just to name a few things.

The DOJ is scheduled to be in town on Thursday as well.