As Natchez-Adams School District officials develop plans for the district’s future, they may find no simple answer to their challenges.

Tackling the smaller issues, however, can eventually move the district forward in a substantial way.

Last week the school board heard from an outside consultant who conducted an educational organization and facility study of the district.

His suggestions included reorganizing which grades attend classes under the same roof. At the moment the district is set up so that students wind up attending up to six different schools before graduation.

Logically, that just doesn’t seem smart. Just about the time students begin feeling comfortable in their surroundings, it’s time to move locations again.

As one teacher said, “Students don’t have a sense of belonging anymore.”

When the consultant asked the crowd on hand which school buildings the community would object to being torn down because they had sacred significance, silence fell on the room.

That speaks volumes.

Not a single school building is significant enough in our collective hearts and minds to cause even a slight pause as we consider tearing them down.

Clearly, the public is starting to realize that the district needs to change and some of those needed changes may, in fact, need to be structural and structures, too.

In addition to reorganizing school grades, the district badly needs some new, functional school buildings.

The middle school is literally falling apart and the high school’s crazy open campus design was a bad idea from the beginning.

If we need funds to pay for new buildings, the fast way may be by making tough decisions about the number of administrative positions the district has versus the number of teaching positions.