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Board grants temporary "hold harmless" while MDE transitions to MSIS 2 and reviews personnel rules
Summary
The Mississippi Board of Education approved a temporary hold-harmless for districts on personnel-edit flags while the department transitions to a new student-information system (MSIS 2) and reviews course/work-area code business rules that determine licensing compliance.
The state board on Feb. 20 approved a temporary hold-harmless for districts from personnel-edit flags tied to the department’s transition from legacy MSIS to MSIS 2 while MDE audits business rules and data mappings that drive licensing checks.
MDE staff and accreditation officials told the board the legacy MSIS implementation lacked documentation and sometimes masked or transformed local scheduling data; MSIS 2 reads personnel and schedule data directly from local district systems, which revealed discrepancies and flags that districts had not previously seen. Office of Accreditation staff and technical leads said flags ranged from how course sections are coded to combined endorsement requirements for certain district roles (for example, special education directors).
Mr. Craman (technical lead) and accreditation staff asked the board to “hold districts harmless” for the current school year to allow the agency to verify rules, correct programming or documentation issues, and, if necessary, propose clarified or revised requirements. MDE emphasized this is not blanket forgiveness: districts with known, ongoing corrective-action plans or long-standing noncompliance remain obligated to remedy those issues, and the agency said it will not block auditors from finding noncompliance during on-site reviews.
Board members asked how long the hold-harmless would last. Agency staff said the board approved the measure for the current school year and that MDE will provide notice and implementation timelines if any rule changes or new requirements are proposed for the next school year. The board approved the action by motion and voice vote.
MDE staff said the change to MSIS 2 will ultimately produce a clearer, more accurate picture of personnel and scheduling data; the hold-harmless is meant to prevent districts from being penalized for flags caused by the technical transition and previously undocumented legacy behavior while MDE corrects rules and communications.
