Petal residents opened up their wallets to support education in the Friendly City during the tax season that ended in April, donating approximately $1.26 million to the Petal Early Learning Collaborative.
Individuals were able to donate to the collaborative – which serves 4-year-old Pre-K students at the C.H. Johnson Head Start and Petal Primary School – for the opportunity to be eligible to receive a 1:1 state tax credit for the donated amount, up to $1 million.
Dede Smith, director of the Coleman Center for Families and Children – which is part of the Petal School District – said the $1.26 million was the most officials had ever collected from the initiative. The funds are being used for measures such as outfitting Pre-K buses with seat belts and the implementation of OWL, a new curriculum the school district was required to purchase.
“So as a result, we had to purchase those curriculum materials for all of our classes that are in the Early Learning Collaborative – three classes at Charles Johnson Head Start and one Pre-K class at the primary school,” Smith said. “But we also went beyond that and used tax credit dollars to purchase the same curriculum for our area full-time child care centers.
“We’ve done this three times over the years, and it’s very unusual to go into a community where all of the Pre-K settings have the opportunity to have the same curriculum. If they live in Petal, they go to Petal Primary School, so having the opportunity to have that common curriculum across the community is a very positive thing.”
Having that same curriculum grants professional development opportunities for the teachers, which allows them to share ideas about the various units and items that work in developing specific skills among children.
“Our goal is always that we’re getting those children ready to go to Petal Primary School when they start in kindergarten,” Smith said. “And one of the things that I always want to communicate is that we do use the tax credit dollars not just for the children who are in the Early Learning Collaborative, but to promote early childhood opportunities all throughout our community. So this is a really great example a great use of funds for that.”
In addition to the state tax credit, a tax deduction may also be available for federal taxes.
The Mississippi Department of Revenue awards the tax credit on a first-come, first-served basis in which a tax return is filed, not in the order in which a donation is made. If a taxpayer attempts to claim a credit of the $5.25 million cap approved by the Mississippi Legislature, the taxpayer will not receive the tax credit, although Smith said that cap has never been reached before.
Donations can be made at the Coleman Center for Families and Children, or at the school district’s central office on East Central Avenue.
“We will have had some people who have made donations; some people make donations quarterly,” Smith said. “Typically, when we get into December, that’s when it really picks up, so we’re hoping that we’ll have another great turnout because it makes a really big difference in what we can do in our school district.”
