The Natchez-Adams School District’s statewide accountability scores released last week showed improvement, but still fall short of its potential.

The overall improvement is reason to celebrate, as is the improvement from an F rating, district-wide, to a D rating.

However, as Superintendent Fred Butcher said, it’s also a reason to redouble efforts going forward because the district can, and should, be better.

Butcher says his goal is to get the district’s schools to a C rating.

His goal is a sound one, as a next step, but we believe the district can do even better, but it must focus more resources on the people who directly interact with the students and less on administrative positions.

The district has complained for a number of years over the difficulty in recruiting the best and the brightest to come to the district. They blame low pay and aging facilities in part.

But given how much the administrative costs in the district have grown, the solution to the district’s financial concerns is likely in reorganizing the district’s resources.

By creating a less top-heavy administration, the district could plow those resources into hiring the best teachers available. The district was just cited by a state agency for, in part, operating with unlicensed professional staff or teachers working outside their subject areas.

The district says the reason was because of the difficulty in recruiting teachers.

If the pay for teachers were to increase, perhaps the position would be attractive enough to bring more people to the district.

What we know is that changes in the district are working, but they’re not working fast enough, thus more aggressive changes in structure may be necessary to get things moving in the district again.