Mississippi's Best Community Newspaper

NATCHEZ — After finding the origin of a two-year administrative salary formula, the Natchez-Adams School Board voted to adopt a new salary formula and scale for its administrators this week.marble

Superintendent Frederick Hill presented the board with a new proposed administrative salary formula and proposed salary scales for supervisors and administrators during its meeting Thursday.

The board voted, in June, to adopt the administrative support personnel salary schedule with an instruction for the superintendent to come back to the board with a report on personnel placement and job descriptions to clarify the duties of administrative assistants.

“The most recent salary formula I found was dated 2010,” Hill said to board members Thursday. “The changes, if approved, will have every administrator on a salary schedule.”

The proposed changes to the salary formula placed all managers on a teacher contract, developed a supervisor’s salary scale and increased the number of days for elementary school principals’ contracts.

The salary formula only changed three salaries in the proposed administrative salary scale for 2013 — increasing the salary of two supervisors and one principal that were corrected from the change.

“I appreciate Dr. Hill for putting all this together,” board member Thelma Newsome said. “At least now we have something to work from.”

The board approved the salary formula and both administrative scales unanimously — with one note from board member David Troutman.

“This should also be a living breathing document,” Troutman said. “It needs to be sporadically looked at.”

NASD spends approximately $22 million on salaries each year, including nearly $900,000 for 10 administrators who each bring home more than $80,000 a year.

In other news from the meeting:

•Hill presented the board with a report comparing enrollment figures in the first 10 days of school during the 2011-2012 school year to the first 10 days of this school year.

The report showed a decrease of 141 students on the first day of school this year as compared to last year.

At the end of the 10 days, the report showed a total decrease of 126 students this year as compared to last year.

“A number of things could be contributed to that including that we’re living in a transient society, so you’ll see this jump all year,” Hill said. “We could just have more seniors leaving.

“I have not conducted my own research to know an exact cause, but this is something we need to look at on a school-to-school basis.”

•In an effort to increase students’ chances of receiving National Merit scholarships and increasing the enrollment and offering of advanced placement courses at Natchez High School, the board voted to fund a preliminary SAT program for 10th graders.

The PSAT measures critical reading skills, math problem-solving skills and writing skills through a series of tests divided into five sections:

•Two 25-minute critical reading sections.

•Two 25-minute math sections.

•One 30-minute writing skills section.

Students have two hours and 10 minutes to complete the test.

NHS sophomores will take the test on Wednesday, Oct. 17.

•The board approved a proposal to cut down on the number of tests administered for students enrolled in classes that take the Mississippi Curriculum Test 2 and Subject Area Testing Program.

Hill explained to the board that the students enrolled in those courses, which are in grades three through 12th, end up taking two tests at the end of each quarter — teacher made tests and benchmark assessments.

“We don’t want to test our students to death,” Hill said. “So what we’re trying to do this year is truly do a common assessment.”

Since many of the same items are covered on both tests, Hill said allowing the benchmark to serve as the end-of-term test would benefit the students in the long run.

Teachers in those classes will be required to take both a raw and a calculated grade from the tests and the latter will serve as the grade recorded for the quarter grade.

•The board approved a proposal from Hill to advertise for an administrative consultant to work at the central office for 90 days.

The duties of the consultant would include providing direct support to schools upon request, assisting schools to serve as a graduation coach and investigate parental or citizen complaints, among other things.

“With the many projects and initiatives I want to implement in the district, I request someone to come in, not as an employee, but as an consultant,” Hill said. “Some of these items we need a person or a couple of people to serve, but due to the cost I think a consultant would be the best solution.”

The agreement would pay the position on a consultant basis at a rate of $300-$400 a day.