Superintendent Anthony Morris updated the Natchez-Adams school board at Thursday’s meeting on the plan to improve ACT scores.

The plan, originally estimated at $250,000 in February, could cost roughly $300,000, according to numbers presented Thursday.

Hopefully, most of that will come from federal grants, Morris said.

“All the figures are rough at this point, but our goal is to cover two-thirds of it with federal dollars,” he said.

The plan, titled “The College Readiness System,” is designed to help students earn higher scores on the ACT, a college entrance exam.

It would incorporate two types of preliminary tests to gauge how well a child is prepared for college.

Eighth-graders would take an exam called Explore, which Morris has previously said provides early indicators of college readiness teachers can use.

The test, which costs the school system $7.30 a student, can be given again at the ninth-grade level, but that’s optional, Morris said Thursday.

The second test, called PLAN, will be administered at the 10th grade level, and costs $9 per student.

As for the ACT itself, it costs $43, Morris said, but most 11th graders who take it pay for it themselves.

The program would also include hiring a facilitator for online classes and four advanced placement teachers. The facilitator and training for the AP teachers might be covered by federal money, Morris said.

But the school system will probably have to wait until the next school year to put the plan into place, he said.

“We could probably do Explore this spring — that’s the earliest phase,” Morris said. “But from this point forward, that’s the only thing we could do this year.”

In other business, the district’s school attendance was at about 93 percent for February.

“It did drop some,” Morris said. “But that’s about normal statewide.”

Since kindergarten attendance isn’t mandatory, attendance at West Primary School, at roughly 92.5 percent, was down a little from where they’d like it Morris said.

The board also reelected Norris Edney as president, Dale Steckler as vice president, Kenneth Taylor as secretary and Johnny Dale as assistant secretary.