NATCHEZ &8212; The first installment of federal Katrina money is on its way to the local schools, and it&8217;s less than they&8217;d hoped for.

The public schools will be responsible for dispersing $498,375 among all local schools, non-public ones included.

That breaks down to $750 for each regular education evacuee student the schools hosted in the first quarter after Hurricane Katrina. The schools will get $900 for each special education student.

&8220;It&8217;s not as much as they said it would be,&8221; Assistant Superintendent Larry Little said Thursday.

This installment is based on evacuee enrollment numbers from the Oct. 1 period. The Hurricane Katrina Education Recovery Act requires districts hosting evacuees to submit enrollment numbers from three periods, Oct. 1, Feb. 1 and April 1.

Reimbursement money from the other periods will be determined later, but Little said he expected it to be less than $498,375 because the number of evacuee students dropped each month after the hurricane.

At one point the Natchez-Adams schools had 659 evacuee students. That number had dropped to 239 by January.

Cathedral had 150 at one point, but now has less than 30.

Trinity Episcopal and Adams County Christian School had around 35 together, but now have less than 10.

The Natchez schools qualify for the U.S. Department of Education&8217;s Impact Aid grants because of the number of displaced students enrolled.

Restart grants went to schools directly damaged by Katrina to rebuild and restart.

Mississippi schools have been awarded $13,641,919 in grant dollars so far.