Last week’s Natchez-Adams School Board meeting seemingly exposed something pretty sad going on in the district — bureaucracy or apathy getting in the way of efficiently educating children.

School board members began questioning reports that school equipment the district ordered took approximately three months to make it from the original order to actually being in the classroom.

As one school board member pointed out, a three-month delay means that almost half the school year will have elapsed before the materials arrive, thus robbing the students of access to the equipment.

On one level, bringing up the issue now may seem simply like the school board is taking shots at the current school superintendent — whose employment contract was not renewed by the board.

However, regardless of the potential timing or underlying motives, if the matter is true, none of the others matter.

If the problem with delayed materials is simply that items were backordered, then a huge communication issue exists.

If the problem is simply caused by apathetic leadership, that’s also a huge problem.

Last year, the district lost thousands of dollars in grant funding because equipment simply wasn’t ordered by the deadline stipulated by the grant.

Taxpayer money should be treated more carefully and those who are entrusted as stewards of taxpayer money should be held to a higher standard than what apparently is coming from the Natchez-Adams School District.

We applaud the school board members for calling for a change in the status quo. District students and county taxpayers deserve better.