VIDALIA — Registration for school in Concordia Parish starts Friday, and the Concordia Parish School District is continuing the strict enforcement of residency requirements that was started last school year.

The school district is under a desegregation order from the U.S. Justice Department, part of which requires strict proofs of residency, Superintendent Loretta Blankenstein said.

“(The justice department) has asked us to continue to do the registration processes as we have done them, and to show them proof that we advertised that and proof we are following through with what we said we would do,” Blankenstein said.

Residency is defined as “your primary place of residence,” Supervisor of Child Welfare and Attendance Brenda Moore said.

Students required to provide proof of residency are those entering the parish school system for the first time or students transferring from one school in the system to another, such as from lower elementary to upper elementary.

That means every pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, third grade, sixth grade and ninth grade student will have to prove residency regardless of prior enrollment.

To prove residency, a minimum of two proofs will be required.

Items that can be considered proof are the parents’ voter registration card, a property tax exemption statement, a driver’s license, utility bills or Internal Revenue Service tax forms, Moore said.

“If you really live at a residence, these should not be hard things to produce,” Blankenstein said.

Students whose residency has not been proven will not be allowed to go to class when school starts.

In the case of residents who have just moved into the area but have not been able to secure a home and are living with a relative, the parents will have to sign an affidavit attesting to their residency, Moore said.

Last year, the district sent supervisors to each school, and after the school determined a student had not registered the supervisor immediately went to the child and was hopefully able to correct the registration oversight soon thereafter, Blankenstein said.

“It is so helpful if people go ahead and go in (to the schools) and provide their registration ahead of time,” she said.

Notices about the residency requirements were first sent out in May.

“We would hope that parents would have everything in terms of what they need, because our goal was not to upset parents or get them worried at the last minute,” Moore said.

In addition to residency requirements, the parents of students entering the sixth grade will have to provide proof their student has up-to-date immunizations.