NATCHEZ — Natchez High School, Morgantown Middle School and nearly 50 schools in Mississippi won’t be taken over by the state department of education in September regardless of how students perform on annual state tests in May.

House Bill 455, which Gov. Phil Bryant signed into law earlier this month, states the clock that kept up with how many “F” ratings a school has received since the 2009-10 school year will be reset, bill author Rep. John Moore said.

Previously, a school was deemed eligible for state takeover after receiving three consecutive “F” ratings. The ratings are given to schools every year and are determined based on students’ performances on annual state tests.

The new law, which repealed the previous law, says the state department of education will have the option to take over a school after only two years of an “F” rating, starting with the 2013-14 school year.

“The purpose of the change was to keep the state from having to take over 55 schools this fall,” Moore said. “The law was getting ready to be implemented and the change was made in the law to basically buy a couple of more years in time.

“The state department doesn’t have the resources or man power to do what the law was dictating.”

During a state takeover, all school employees are terminated — including the principal — and a new leader is appointed by MDE who then conducts the process of finding replacements. Employees who were previously employed at the school would be eligible to apply for the new positions.

A takeover for Morgantown and Natchez High School would mean nearly 100 teachers would be temporarily unemployed.

NASD Superintendent Frederick Hill said the new law doesn’t change the mentality of district officials this year or next year.

“We have to do something until we reach the status of a successful school and until then, the burden will not be off my shoulders,” Hill said. “To me, it’s nothing to celebrate.”

Hill said benchmark assessments aimed at showing how students will perform on the annual state tests indicate Morgantown and NHS will receive “F” ratings again in September.

“We would find ourselves in the same position we are now next year,” Hill said. “It resets the clock, but it only sets it for two years.”

NASD Board of Trustee president Tim Blalock said teachers and students shouldn’t look at the new law as a saving grace, but instead as an extension of time to improve.

“It’s a time for us to pause, wipe our brow and soldier on,” Blalock said. “It buys us a little bit of time, but we don’t need to look at it just that way.”

Pete Smith, MDE communications and legislative services bureau manager, said the logistics of the previous law would have made this fall a difficult time for MDE representatives, who would have been tasked with taking over more than 50 schools.

“It just wasn’t feasible,” Smith said. “And all that could only take place in September when new scores came out, so it was an unworkable deal.”

Smith said the new bill resets the clock for those schools who were slated to be taken over by the state, but also gives MDE more control over the process two years from now if a school receives two consecutive “F” ratings.

“The new language places a lot of the accountability on local school principals and superintendents to where we’ve got several different options,” Smith said. “We now have something the department feels like we can work with in hopes of getting more accountability back on the schools to help turn them around.”

One example Smith said MDE can use under the new law instead of the blanket option of firing all employees would be to place a school under a supervised school-improvement plan.

“We can sort of triage the worst of the worst or apply different approaches to different schools,” Smith said. “It’s better than what we had.”

Smith said he hoped schools used the new law as a time to make improvements and avoid being in the same position in a few years.

“We don’t want to go in and take over schools, so this should be a reprieve for schools,” Smith said. “We would have had to take over 50 plus schools this year and next year we were looking at about 90 plus, so hopefully this is an opportunity for the principals and leadership to look and see where they are able to make major improvements.”

Improvements for NASD were enacted in the form of a restructuring proposal the school board approved last month that will establish three smaller learning communities for students: middle school academies, an early college model and a career academy.

The changes are structured around the idea of smaller classes and more personal teacher instruction. They will be enacted for the 2014-15 school year.