A radio tower on 16th-section land and a complaint about new school start times drew the attention of the local school board Thursday night.

The Vicksburg Warren School District Board of Trustees unanimously approved a one-year agreement to lease a parcel of a larger privately-leased piece of school district land to allow Mark Jones, the owner of Lendsi Radio LLC, to potentially construct a new radio tower.

At the board’s June 26 meeting, Jones told the board that the Federal Communications Commission would not approve the radio tower’s construction without a guaranteed lease on the property. However, committing to a 25-year long-term lease would not be financially viable, he said, should the construction be denied.”

“What we’ve tentatively worked out is to allow them to go forward with the (one-year) lease,” said Briggs Hopson III, the school board attorney. “If the FCC approves it, then we’ll go forward to reclassify the land and enter into a long term lease with Lendsi.”

The property is located in rural Warren County off Oak Ridge Road.

The board also heard a complaint from Lindsay Brown, a mother of three students in the district, about the recent change in school times that pushed elementary classes earlier in the day and secondary classes slightly later.

Brown, who works at Mission Primary Care Clinic, said she had expected to be able to allow her junior-high school age daughter to watch her elementary-aged children for about an hour between their dismissal from school and Brown’s arrival home from work.

“My younger children will get out of school almost an hour before my younger daughter. It creates concern for me,” she said.

The board previously voted to change the school start times at the request of Superintendent Chad Shealy, who highlighted research showing teens and adolescents learn better later in the day whereas elementary students show the most gains in the morning.