NATCHEZ — The Natchez-Adams School District Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to merge two of its middle school academies.

The move — which was presented to the board by Interim Superintendent Fred Butcher — will combine the Morgantown Leadership Academy with the Morgantown College Prep Academy.

The two schools will operate under one principal and an assistant principal, though the curriculum will remain the same for students enrolled in the different tracks.

The merger will not affect the Morgantown Arts Academy.

Saying the merger had “nothing to do with the effectiveness of the academies,” Butcher said it helps address a staffing shortage of six vacancies.

“We have limited resources, and right now the resources we are missing are teachers,” Butcher said. “Even with combining, the teacher-student ratio will be much lower than the state is requiring.”

Before the merger, the leadership academy had a student-to-teacher ratio of 8:1, and the college prep academy’s ration was 12:1. The merger will create a combined school of 244 students, or a student-teacher ratio of 14:1.

While the students enrolled in the different academies have different electives based on which academy they are a part of, the core classes are the same.

School board member Cynthia Smith said the merger will help save the district approximately $75,000 for a principal and $250,000 for other salaries.

Butcher said the principal of one of the academies had already left because of illness.

Board member Thelma Newsome — who was attending the meeting via conference call — said she agreed to the merger on a temporary basis, but she hoped the district would be able to go back to three academies in the future.

“If you have all these vacancies and no one to fill them, what good is it doing?” Board President Amos James said. “By combining them, you are cutting down on those vacancies.”

When voting for the merger — which passed without opposition — board members committed to review the matter in the future.

In other news:

-The board went into executive session for legal strategy planning in advance of a planned appeal by former Superintendent Frederick Hill, whose contract the board terminated earlier this year after he was found liable in a civil rights lawsuit last year.

-The board voted not to renew the contract of Service Master, a cleaning company.