NATCHEZ — Natchez-Adams County public schools will rollout new changes to schools and programs as the new school year kicks off today, while Concordia Parish schools will continue expanding a school that underwent changes two years ago.

Natchez-Adams School District

Superintendent Frederick Hill said he believes a restructuring of schools in the district this year and a wide variety of course offerings will be an important step in moving the district forward.

“I think people are starting to see the changes going on in the district and are getting excited about everything we’re going to be offering,” Hill said. “We’ve been pretty stable over the last few years as far as student enrollment, but we’re hoping those numbers start to rise.”

The restructuring in the district will encompass four schools — Morgantown Middle School, Natchez High School, Robert Lewis Magnet School and Central Alternative School.

All the changes made at those schools, Hill said, seek to create smaller learning environments with more personalized instruction for students.

Morgantown Middle School will be split into three different academies — arts, leadership and college prep academy — that will serve students in sixth through eighth grades.

Natchez High School will be spilt up from a traditional ninth through 12th grade school.

Ninth-grade students will attend the Freshman Academy, which has been moved to the former Central School on Lynda Lee Drive.

Students in 10th through 12th grade will attend an early college academy at the Natchez High School campus that will offer semester-long courses.

Students will spend the first two years of high school earning credits in more rigorous courses to help prepare them for college.

As early as their junior year of high school, students could begin to earn dual credits.

The model will allow a student to finish the program with a high-school diploma and an associate degree or up to two years of college credit.

The district, Hill said, is still continuing to explore partnerships with Copiah-Lincoln Community College and Alcorn State University to possibly have students in certain tracts take classes at those school’s Natchez campuses.

A career academy will also be offered and will restructure the Fallin Career and Technology Center to offer students entering in 9th grade a three- or four-year program.

“I think people will embrace these changes once they see how many different options it offers students,” Hill said. “The traditional school model simply does not work anymore.”

A majority of the changes, Hill said, came from seeing the success at Robert Lewis Magnet School during its first year.

The school started off last year housing 126 sixth-grade students at the former Robert Lewis Middle School with the idea that each grade would move up until it was teaching students in sixth through eighth grades.

District officials decided to expand the program through the eighth grade starting this school year.

“We expected great things from that school, but it really exceeded all of our expectations and when the accountability scores come out, I think everyone will see why,” Hill said. “The success of the smaller learning communities there were just proof that we needed to do something different throughout the district.”

Concordia Parish schools

Superintendent Paul Nelson said an expansion of the district’s magnet school program and course offerings at the high school have him excited for the year ahead.

The Concordia Parish Academy of Math, Science and Technology — the parish’s magnet school — will expand this year to include seventh grade.

The school opened in 2012 at the site of the former Ridgecrest school site, with students in grades kindergarten through fifth.

The grade level at the school will continue to increase as each class moves up.

“We’re still really excited about the programs going on out at our magnet school and excited about the possibilities ahead,” Nelson said. “We’ve got some new computer assistance design and engineering courses starting this year that will really help push that (Science, Technology and Mathematics) curriculum.”

One of the new courses being offered, Nelson said, involves 3D printing where students will create models through programs on the computer and send them to be printed on a machine that will be setup at the school.

Nelson said that program, along with a continued expansion of the school’s robotics program that began last year, is sparking more discussions about what the district will need to do in the coming years to accommodate students at the campus.

An original plan when the school first opened was for the district to partner with the Central Louisiana Technical Community College, which would include sending high school students to the college’s Ferriday campus for classes.

“We’re still in discussions with the community college with the plan of having our juniors and seniors going out there,” Nelson said. “We’re going to continue having discussions about what to do down the road to see if there’s a need to expand the campus any further out there at Ridgecrest.”

Another push by school administrators this year, Nelson said, will come at the high schools with dual enrollment and Advanced Placement courses.

The dual enrollment programs at Ferriday and Vidalia high schools offer students the opportunity to take college level courses in subjects such as English and math, while enrolled in high school.

If a student completes that course, they can earn college credit to schools that participate in the program.

The recent 2014 graduating classes at Ferriday and Vidalia, Nelson said, earned 642 collective college credits to the University of Louisiana Monroe alone, which is one of the schools that participate.

The AP program also gives high school students the opportunity to enroll in college-level courses at their schools.

Last year was the first time the courses were offered at Concordia Parish schools, and Nelson said he hopes to see an increase in the number of students who successfully completed the courses and earn college credit.

“We want students to realize that they have an opportunity here to graduate high school with 24 to 36 hours of college credit in their pocket,” Nelson said. “We feel really good about the direction of our dual enrollment program, and we just have to keep working on the AP courses.”

Students at Concordia schools will only have a half-day today with a 12:30 p.m. dismissal.