VIDALIA &8212; Round two for the Concordia Parish School Board is expected to be just as long as last week&8217;s meeting.

Superintendent Kerry Laster presented a plan for changes in the Ferriday schools to the board at nearly four hour-long specially called meeting last Tuesday; she&8217;ll try again tonight.

Laster and top administrators have met multiple times since then and will try again tonight, but the public will have to wait until after executive session to hear their plans, she said.

&8220;I&8217;ll have plan 1 and plan 2,&8221; she said last week. &8220;We&8217;ll meet to see if we can make this work.&8221;

And school board member Gary Parnham said he&8217;s ready to listen.

&8220;I&8217;m going to listen to see what the superintendent&8217;s plan is,&8221; he said. &8220;There were some things some board members didn&8217;t like about the last plan. There were just a couple of things I personally wanted her to revisit.&8221;

Though none of the proposed changes were discussed in open session at last week&8217;s meeting, about 100 schoolteachers and staff attended based on talk of personnel changes affecting principals.

Laster has said her plan to the board addresses concerns of the academic achievement in Ferriday schools. Before the executive session she presented a slideshow outlining specific concerns, which included:

4Attracting and retaining certified and highly qualified teachers.

4A need to address behavioral issues with a &8220;teaching&8221; counselor addressing pro-active social skills.

4Parental support.

4Appropriate teaching strategies to meet the needs of below, on and above grade level students.

4More classroom monitoring and feedback to teachers.

4Evidence of professional development being implemented in the classroom.

Board member Raymond Riley said he thinks the first step in improving the Ferriday schools is increasing diversity. The schools are majority black.

&8220;I think there are a lot of good faculty and staff in those schools,&8221; he said. &8220;There comes a time that we need to be more supportive than negative about things.&8221;

Riley said he wasn&8217;t in favor of moving principals from one school the other but instead recommended the district has to work to recruit top quality employees.

&8220;I think shopping and selling our school system to qualified and certified teachers is best,&8221; he said.

And he&8217;s not opposed to financial incentives, though he sees the other side, he said.

&8220;If you are having trouble maintaining certified teachers in a certain area, you offer them incentives,&8221; he said. &8220;You don&8217;t take the thinking that they are the same as somewhere else. Evidently, it&8217;s a problem if you can&8217;t maintain teachers.&8221;

Ferriday Lower, Upper and Junior High schools were ranked academically unacceptable by the state last year. The schools have written and followed school improvement plans this year.

Because of their academic rankings, the schools used more supplemental services than other parish schools and received more state funding.

Ferriday Lower received $227,182 in funding this year, up from $130,102 in 2001. Ferriday Upper received $187,525, up from $123,525 five years ago.

All three &8220;academically unacceptable&8221; schools are in school improvement level 2 this year. If they do not make their growth target for 2006, they&8217;ll move into level 3.

Laster said now was the appropriate time to make changes because staffing for next year has not yet been completed, scheduling isn&8217;t done, school improvement plans aren&8217;t written and grants aren&8217;t finalized.

The meeting starts at 5:30 tonight.

Also on the agenda is a presentation from Durham School Services, a contract bus company. Durham currently provides transportation for the Natchez-Adams Schools. Concordia Parish schools own some of their own buses; independent drivers own the rest.