The pre-K through sixth grade students are a welcome addition to campus
After a fire broke out at Hayes Cooper Elementary School in Merigold last April, school officials were left scrambling to find a place for the school’s students to finish out the school year.
“When I learned about the fire that happened at Hayes Cooper on Thursday, April 11, I immediately reached out to Dr. [Lisa] Bramuchi to offer help and assistance. Soon after, we made the offer for Hayes Cooper to move to DSU for the remainder of the Spring 2024 semester,” said Dr. Dan Ennis, president of Delta State University.
“Early in the summer, it was determined that their facility would not be ready for the students to go back to school in August. Collaborating with the Cleveland School District, the DSU team worked out a plan for Hayes Cooper to remain on campus for the 2024-2025 academic year. DSU was also fortunate to receive $2.5 million from the Mississippi legislature to construct and operate a preK-6th grade school in Bolivar County,” he said. “This summer, we used that funding to renovate Kethley Hall to become the new home of Hayes Cooper. The DSU community came together to meet the needs of the student population, and we were able to do a lot in a very short amount of time.”
The youngsters have been a welcome addition to the college campus. There are currently 307 pre-K through sixth grade students housed on the DSU campus.
“Years ago, Delta State started as a teacher school, and they had a lab school here and that was a big thing then. And now, it’s kind of gone full circle,” said Sonya Swafford, Hayes Cooper principal. “I think, because universities are moving back to having a lab school, there are a lot of benefits of children being on campus.
“I got a letter today from some graduate students wanting to do a service project with us about swimming. So, I thought that’s so great. It’s just a wonderful opportunity to be on campus and to be exposed to everything, like the big real library and the aquatic center that they probably would have never gotten to see before. And where we are on campus, right across the Delta Performing Arts Center, we can walk right over and like Grammys Museum is across the highway, and there’s the planetarium. And so, it’s just a great opportunity for the children. We’re enjoying it,” she said.
“Hayes Cooper students are able to utilize our campus amenities and enjoy being ‘college students’. Having children on our campus is uplifting. Their energy is contagious. We look forward to the opportunities that this partnership may foster,” said Ennis.
The investigation into the fire is still ongoing, so permanent plans for Hayes Cooper are not available at this time.
“Superintendent Bramuchi and I have had initial conversations to discuss the option of keeping the school housed here permanently,” said Ennis. “This summer, we visited the Partnership Middle School, located on the campus of Mississippi State University. That school is a collaboration between MSU and the Starkville-Oktibbeha School District. We feel that Hayes Cooper and DSU could replicate many aspects of that school while tailoring programs and policies to fit the situation in Cleveland.”
Swafford, who is in her first year as principal, would also like to see the arrangement become permanent.
“I think the most joyful thing to me is seeing that it’s more of a neighborhood school now because children are walking and riding their bikes to school,” she said. “I think that’s so awesome to see kids ride their bikes to school. Nobody wants to have to have an experience with having to move your school a week before testing. But at the same time, it’s turned out to be a good thing. People were definitely devastated. We had some people hurt in the incident. It’s been a lot to transition over but in the end it’s been a blessing.
“We still have some needs, like for a gymnasium type area. We don’t have a meeting space, per se. We have the need for more restrooms, too. So, in my dream of dreams, I would hope that we would build those and make it a more permanent option for us to stay,” said Swafford. “They did a lot of work for us to move in. They knocked walls down and restructured classrooms, and they’ve done a lot already, and it’s good. But if I could dream a dream, that would be it.”