Natchez-Adams School Superintendent Frederick Hill has the makings of an excellent auto mechanic.

Any professional mechanic knows the absolute first step in solving any repair issue is to carefully and thoroughly assess the symptoms to get to the root of the underlying problem.

Without knowing exactly what is broken and to the extent to which it’s broken, beginning repairs is futile.

Hill, in his first full year at the helm of the public schools, has not shied away from address the sputtering engine that’s driving our public schools.

Hill, along with an aggressive, things-must-change group of school board members has wisely brought in an outside voice to offer up the early diagnosis.

An audit just completed by Phi Delta Kappa International has opened the hood on the district and revealed some of the ugly truths about our schools.

With the outside experts’ confirmation on where the problems lie, Hill and others should be able to systematically begin addressing the issues.

At Tuesday night’s town hall meeting, Hill addressed Natchez High School’s startling high dropout rate.

Hill is correct that we, as a community, must help solve this problem. If we don’t, we’ll continue to be pumping out more and more uneducated citizens into the community.

The more than occurs, the faster our community’s engine will sputter and stall.

We cannot afford to not have good public schools.

Hill’s methodical work to first diagnose the problems — almost all of which he inherited — then move out with repairs will get the district running smoothly again soon.