NATCHEZ — Recent efforts to hire teachers in the Natchez-Adams School District have left the district in a better position than it has been in the last four to five years.

Last week, Natchez-Adams School District board members received an update on the number of open teacher positions in the district from NASD Assistant Supervisor of Human Resources Cassandra Tennessee.

Currently, the school district has 24 open teacher positions, Tennessee said.

“This point last year in June we had 60-plus open positions,” she said.

Tennessee said in the last three years, the district has been trying to fill an overflow of vacancies for both certified and non-certified teachers. At one point, the school district had more than 80 vacancies to fill.

NASD Superintendent Fred Butcher said his administration with help from the Mississippi Department of Education had worked hard to address the teacher shortages.

“We are at a better point than we have been in the last four or five years,” Butcher said. “That should be a tribute to the (human resources) department, the administrators and the state department.”

Butcher said MDE has been helpful in approving licenses for teachers, including emergencies licenses.

The Natchez-Adams School District is not the only school district in the state looking to fill open positions.

Last week, the Daily Journal newspaper in Tupelo reported the Mississippi Department of Education had 2,125 job openings listed on its website. The job openings were primarily for teachers but included other positions as well.

The average number of job openings in the state’s 148 districts is a little more than 14 openings per district.

Comparatively, the 30 school districts in the Tupelo area average a little less than four open positions per school district.

The Natchez-Adams School District currently has 30 job positions available on its website. Of those positions, two are for coaching positions, two are for custodian positions, one is for a reading interventionist and one is for a security officer.

Like most of the school districts across the state, most of the positions available in the Natchez-Adams School district are for teachers.

“Currently right now there’s just a shortage of teachers overall,” said former Tupelo High School principal Jason Harris, who is currently the superintendent of Columbia School District outside Hattiesburg.

Although Mississippi school districts often vie for the same teachers, finding a solution will be a collective effort, Harris told the Daily Journal.

“Right now in Columbia we’re trying to find a high school math teacher and Biloxi is trying to find a math teacher too,” Harris said. “But we shouldn’t look at this problem like a competition. We’re all responsible for our individual districts, but we’ve got to help each other out for the good of the state.”