VIDALIA — Solving continued attendance problems is the first step to improving Concordia Parish’s schools, administrators said Thursday.

Administrators met with school board officials to discuss their schools’ strengths and weaknesses.

All of the administrators talked about their procedures for contacting students’ guardians when they have poor attendance patterns and the importance of improving attendance.

“(Attendance) becomes a huge problem at our grade level,” Ferriday Upper Elementary Principal Cindy Smith said. “When a child misses a lot of days in the third grade, it becomes a habit.”

Some attendance problems are a result of discipline problems, though, Ferriday Junior High School Assistant Principal Lisa Cater said.

“(Attendance reports are) affected by our number of out-of-school suspensions,” she said.

Discipline problems aside, one of the solutions presented for attendance problems included Saturday school, something Monterey High School Interim Principal John Bostic said Monterey would start in March.

“We will probably do it in four-hour blocks, and the students will have to do two Saturdays to make up one day,” he said. “If they skip a Wednesday to go shopping, if they know they had to go to two Saturdays to make that up, they’d think twice about it.”

Other issues varied from school to school.

Ridgecrest Elementary Principal Nancy Anders said that although her staff has become more stable in recent months, the school still has a lot of part-time employees.

“Not that I don’t appreciate what these part-time teachers are doing, but it is hard to have stability in a curriculum when you have a teacher who comes in and teaches for one day and another teacher who comes in for another day,” she said.

The reports weren’t all about challenges the schools face, though.

Both Ferriday Upper and Lower Elementary administrators noted that the student scores on reading assessments have improved this year.

“We are very pleased with the hard work of our students and teachers,” Ferriday Lower Assistant Principal Bobbie Hinson said.

Both Vidalia Junior High Principal Whest Shirley and Vidalia High Principal Rick Brown spoke about recognizing student achievement and good behavior.

“You’d be surprised what one of these students would do for a doughnut,” Brown said.

The next academic progress meeting is scheduled for June.

The school board voted in 2008 to add three special meetings a year to discuss academic progress in the school system.

Thursday’s meeting was the second meeting for the school year.