State Rep. Alex Monsour, R-Vicksburg, said there are three factors the community needs to grow and prosper: education, quality of life and employment.

Monsour spoke at the weekly Lions Club meeting about these three factors, which he said were all positives in Vicksburg.

He noted the school district accountability ratings for the 2014-2015 school year that were recently released by the Mississippi Department of Education, which gave the Vicksburg Warren School District a “D” grade.

“It’s deceptive because we’re still operating on the previous administration and what happened back then,” he said. “We still got about two years that’s got to fall off of that.”

Monsour was confident the school district is on the upswing, and the accountability grade will soon match other accomplishments the district has made. He spoke with officials at Warren Central High School to get more information on the specific school’s status and found passing biology test scores were up in one year from 59 to 72 percent and the graduation rate rose from 59 to 69.5 percent.

“It’s getting better,” he said.

Monsour praised the new River City Early College High School located on the Hinds Community College Vicksburg-Warren Campus that allows students to either earn an associates degree, start a bachelor’s degree or earn a professional certification while also obtaining a high school diploma.

“It’s a phenomenal thing,” Monsour said. “That’s something that sets us apart from about three different locations in the state of Mississippi.”

Another improvement, he said, was passing legislation in the state for a third grade reading gateway test called the Literacy-Based Promotion Act.

“We got a lot of resistance,” Monsour said. “We made it mandatory if a child can’t read in the third grade you’ve got to hold them back.”

He said holding the child back prevents them from falling further behind. Education is the most important thing, he said, for Vicksburg to compete within the state, for industry to thrive locally and for people to acquire employment.

Monsour was particularly optimistic about the new Continental Tire plant coming to the Hinds County area between Bolton and Clinton. The facility, he said, will cost $10 million and be larger than Canton’s Nissan plant.

“We’re looking at between 5 and 8,000 jobs being created 30 miles down the road from Vicksburg,” he said, adding employees in those jobs are set to make an average of $41,000 a year.

Within three years there will be partial employment and the plant will be fully employed in five years, Monsour said. Plant employees will be trained through workforce development in community colleges, particularly Hinds.

“We want them trained here,” he said.

The company expressed to him their interest in transporting material via water, and Monsour believes Vicksburg will be the perfect port for that endeavor.

“Vicksburg is the logical area for that,” he said. “As far as cost goes it’s going to be beneficial for them for Vicksburg to be ready.”

To get ready, Monsour is in talks with Mississippi Development Authority on expanding the port to facilitate the company.

Monsour said he is focused on growth.

“If we get the education system caught up to the rest of them, get the quality of life here in Vicksburg, get the jobs, then this will be where people can move, live and start growing,” Monsour said. “It may mean you have to raise a little bit of money for Hinds Community College to be able to build that, but you’ll have new students, new jobs, new qualifications coming in and that’s the way you expand.”