NATCHEZ — Representatives from the City of Natchez and the Natchez-Adams School District will travel today to Memphis to visit with city leaders and tour one of the city’s innovative high schools.

Natchez Mayor Butch Brown, NASD Superintendent Frederick Hill and deputy superintendent Tanisha Smith are scheduled for a multipurpose visit to West Memphis.

Topics covered on the trip, Brown said, will range from education to tourism to workforce development.

The trip was arranged by Charlie McVean, the chairman and CEO of McVean Trading & Investments, who Brown said became interested in bringing Natchez officials to Memphis a year ago during a meeting the two attended regarding the Mississippi River.

“McVean sponsored a dinner for everyone and at the dinner he had a presentation of a high school choir that was just incredible,” Brown said. “It turns out the students were from a learning program (McVean) organized, which was put together similar to a magnet school.”

Brown said McVean invited him and officials from Natchez schools to visit East High School to tour the school and get an overview of the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) program at the school.

“He’s a very generous and exuberant person who really wants to see his city grow and excel,” Brown said. “One way he thinks that can happen is through education, so he’s sending his jet plane down here to take a couple of us up for the day to see what they’ve done there.”

The high school has an engineering optional program, where students are introduced to career opportunities in engineering, design and technology.

A full honors curriculum emphasizes STEM to prepare students for success in the post-secondary and professional arenas of engineering, according to the school’s website.

A magnet school was created in the NASD for the first time this school year at the site of the former Robert Lewis Middle School.

The school, NASD officials have said, is aimed to expose students to STEM curriculum and project-based learning methods.

While on the trip, the Natchez officials will also learn about a peer-tutoring program McVean started nearly a decade ago at East High School and has since expanded to other schools in Tennessee and Mississippi.

Peer Power is a non-profit organization that recruits high-performing high school and college students to tutor younger public school students in a variety of subjects to improve their standardized test scores and college or job readiness, according to the organization’s website.

Each school’s principals independently manage the programs, and tutors are paid an hourly wage.

Brown said his hopes for the trip are that Natchez school officials can model the successes of the school and its programs.

“All these things expose the students to the community and allow them to become a bigger, broader part of the learning experience that gives them a leg up as they start their adult lives,” Brown said. “We have an opportunity to make that work here in our town and give our students some of those same opportunities.”

Attempts to reach Hill were unsuccessful Monday and Tuesday.

The officials, who are expected to return this evening, will also visit Mid-South Community College to learn about its job training and work force development programs, as well as take a bridge and river tour to discuss the area’s tourism efforts.