The banners have been raised at three schools in Concordia Parish as a testament to their success last year.

&uot;When you walk into our building, you can see our reward,&uot; Ferriday High School Principal Debra Harris said of her schools banner for their &uot;exemplary academic growth.&uot;

Banners are not the only reward for these outstanding schools, they were also rewarded monetarily for meeting their accountability standards last year.

The announcement of the rewards &045;&045; $8,100 for Vidalia Upper Elementary School, more than $9,000 for Monterey High School and about $11,000 for Ferriday High School &045;&045; came just before LEAP testing last week.

It was &uot;really good for them to get the money right here and get a little boost before all the testing,&uot; said Darla Johnston, principal of Vidalia Upper Elementary, which showed &uot;recognized academic growth,&uot; as did Monterey High School. Fred Butcher, director of academic affairs for the district who also served as principal at Ferriday High School last year, said the rewards give the schools confidence when they can see the &uot;dividends of their rewards.&uot;

&uot;I feel good about it (the FHS reward) because the teachers, students and parents worked very hard to get to that point,&uot; he said.

&uot;Between the students and teachers, along with support from parents, that is how the difference was able to be made.&uot;

Ferriday High School improved two times more than any other Concordia Parish School from last year, gaining 14.5 points to their school performance score from the previous year.

Four schools, including Monterey High School, received rewards for their growth two years ago.

&uot;I think overall our parish has been fortunate,&uot; Butcher said.

&uot;This is the second year of rewards and we have had a total of seven schools receive rewards.&uot;

Monterey Principal Neeva Sibley said the school used the money last year for things needed at the school, and they will do so again this year. All three principals said are asking faculty for ideas on how to use the money.

Harris said some funds will be used to replace computers and buy software to be used across the curriculum.