NATCHEZ — The Natchez-Adams County School District could end up paying approximately $500,000 more than the $371,000 in damages recently awarded to a former employee.

In September, a federal jury agreed with former Principal Cindy Idom’s contention that her July 2013 resignation from the school district was forced due to a hostile work environment that included sustained racial discrimination against her as a white person.

Idom was awarded $271,737 in back pay and damages from the school district, $75,000 from Superintendent Frederick Hill and $25,000 from Assistant Superintendent Tanisha Smith.

In addition to the damages, she was also awarded $84,650 for breach of contract for the 2013-2014 school year.

In a recent filing before the court, which has not issued a final ruling on the matter, Idom’s attorneys have asked for the NASD to have to pay her attorney’s fees and costs.

The fees come to $235,340 for 1,028 hours divided between three attorneys and a paralegal. Including costs incurred by the attorneys during the course of the case, the bill bumps up to $257,814.27.

The attorneys have also asked for the court to give Idom front pay, or future lost wages, “because reinstatement is not feasible in this case.” Idom is seeking $193,227 in front pay to make up for the salary and $22,593 in retirement benefits she would have earned had she worked in the school district until she was 65.

She was forced into retirement at 61. The filing states front pay would be applicable from the date of the trial forward.

The attorneys also asked for the judge to grant an 8 percent annual interest rate be applied to the judgment from the date of Idom’s termination. The filing cites federal and state laws that allow for such a request.

The total payment will be $885,059.27 if all of those requests are honored.

Officials with the school district have said they do not have a response to the case until the final judgment is ordered because the judge may agree with the jury, but could also throw the case out.

Idom’s case was filed in May 2014. She resigned her post at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year after 11 years as a principal at West Elementary School and shortly after she was reassigned to Frazier Elementary School against her wishes.

During the trial, Idom alleged — among other things — she was bullied for racial reasons and faced standards black principals did not. Idom is white, and Hill and Smith are black.

Idom’s claims also included that inadequate school facilities in the midst of a district-wide reorganization and the assignment of poor teachers to West Elementary — as well as a “hostile work environment” created by Hill and Smith — contributed to the school’s low performance during that year’s standardized testing period.

Idom’s suit also alleged her later transfer to Frazier did not give her an opportunity to improve test scores at West — which had only one year of testing behind it — and when she was removed as principal at Frazier, she was offered a teaching position.

The lawsuit called the teaching offer “a degrading demotion.”

Two other wrongful termination lawsuits against the school district are pending, though the plaintiffs in both cases — Shannon Doughty and Regina McCoy — did not allege race discrimination.

In those cases, both plaintiffs allege they faced demotion or resignation based on projections of school performance test scores that predicted the schools at which they were employed would fail. When the scores came out, however, the schools improved.

Doughty and McCoy now work in other school districts.

Their cases have been filed in Adams County Circuit Court, but have not yet been set for trial.