NATCHEZ — The possibility of a state takeover at Morgantown Middle School in the years to come has fueled teacher Celeste Kinds’ desire to bring the school — and its district — out of the shadow of an “F” rating.

“The bottom line is that we don’t want them to come in here and take over our school,” the eighth-grade science teacher said. “We don’t want them here so that’s what we use to motivate ourselves as teachers, because we don’t have time for negativity to even think like that right now.”

The threat of a takeover — which would mean termination for the teaching staff and school principals — has served as the ultimate morale booster for Kinds and some of her colleagues, despite talk among others and a few public comments to the contrary. Superintendent Frederick Hill acknowledged that concerns about morale have been brought to his attention.

“I am hearing that (teacher morale) is down, but I don’t know if that’s something different this year than in past years,” Hill said. “I’ve talked to some individuals who have expressed concerns and others who are excited about moving this district forward.”

Former Natchez-Adams School Board President Wayne Barnett brought the issue of teacher morale before the board in February, at his last meeting. Barnett asked the board to look into why a “large number” of teachers were leaving the district.

“This is more than I can ever remember resigning, retiring or whatever,” Barnett said. “I can understand two or three, but we’ve had them come in bunches, and we need to look at what’s causing them.”

But, in reality, the number of teachers who have left jobs with the district this year is not drastically different than in years past.

During this school year, 39 teachers have left their jobs. The district employs nearly 250 teachers.

In previous years, teacher departures were as follows:

-2012-2013 — 42

-2011-2012 — 48

-2010-2011 — 39

-2009-2010 — 35

Hill said the numbers weren’t surprising to him because he knew the perception of large numbers of teachers leaving the district was unfounded.

“I think what happened this year is that you had some people leaving the district coupled with a lot of changes going on, and people automatically assumed teachers were leaving,” Hill said. “But if you look at the data, you can see that number is pretty typical of the number in past years.”

Hill did acknowledge that of the 39 teachers leaving this year, a high number of them were from Morgantown, a school on the brink of state takeover. But he couldn’t say for certain that the takeover threat led to those departures.

The departures, however, have definitely harmed the school’s efforts to avoid that takeover.Some teachers left suddenly and without notice — leading the school board to apply to suspend two teachers’ licenses who had voided their contract by leaving in the middle of the school year.

Mid-year departures hurt students and academic progress, Hill and school board member Thelma Newsome said.

“It’s often hard to find teachers that time of year, so nine times out of 10 you’ll be stuck trying to get a long-term substitute,” Newsome said.

Such an interruption to the academic studies of an entire class typically has an impact on test scores, Hill said.

Hill said he believes the abrupt changes in personnel at Morgantown this year are a key reason students didn’t show growth on benchmark assessments given throughout the year. Scores were lower on those tests when given in March in all subject areas except science.

“The lack of staff because of people exiting early really hurt us there, but we’ve been pushing in the last few weeks to not sink this ship.

“Let’s stabilize and move forward.”

Leading the stabilization movement on the Morgantown ship is Kinds, who has been in the district for 14 years, including eight years at Robert Lewis Middle School and, now, nearly two years at Morgantown.

During her time at Robert Lewis, Kinds also served as a teacher mentor and would meet with and help train first-year teachers in the district.

The experience allowed her to get a good idea of what teachers struggled with in the classroom and how she could motivate the teachers to succeed.

“My first year was my worst year, so I certainly knew what all these teachers were going through,” Kinds said. “That first year is a make-it-or-break-it year, and a lot of times teachers just need someone to talk to, vent to or get advice from.”

Kinds said she now sees herself as an unofficial mentor for some teachers at Morgantown — especially this year.

“The pressure of the possible takeover is kind of getting to some of us, but we’ve been using that to motivate each other and try to keep uplifting each other,” Kinds said. “But at the end of the day it’s not about us or what we’re going through, it’s about these kids.

“We’re adults so we’re just going to have to step up, handle this and focus on the kids.”

Kinds and her colleagues at Morgantown and Natchez High — the other local school facing a potential takeover — were given a bit more time to show change earlier this month when the governor signed legislation delaying the takeover.

Fifty-five schools statewide that were on the bubble for takeover this fall now have two years to show improvement.

Laura Jones, office of school improvement director with the Mississippi Department of Education, said the potential of a state takeover now or later shouldn’t worry teachers in who are doing their jobs.

A takeover for Morgantown and Natchez High School would mean nearly 100 teachers would be temporarily unemployed, but Jones said all employees who previously worked at the schools would be eligible to interview for the new positions.

“We would go back and hire the people that are doing a good job or are on an improvement plan and trying to do better,” Jones said. “It’s the ones who aren’t getting better and don’t want to get better that we don’t want.”

If positions were not able to be filled after the interviews, Jones said the state would use resources — such as Teach for America, Mississippi Teacher Corps or similar organizations — to fill the vacant positions.

But Jones said the majority of districts she visits use the news of a potential state takeover as motivation to turn their school around.

“Everybody gets mad at first, but most of them realize that something has to change and work to turn themselves around,” Jones said. “Quite frankly, the people that don’t end up taking that perspective and stay mad are the ones that end up getting that school an ‘F’ status because they don’t want to change anything.”

Hill agreed, saying when news of the takeover came in October he was hopeful it would be a motivator and a morale booster.

“I’m frustrated, myself, but to me that’s also the biggest motivational factor in wanting to do better,” Hill said.