VIDALIA — Nine out of 10 Concordia Parish schools improved their school performance scores this year.

The scores were recently released by the state.

Vidalia Lower Elementary School and Ferriday Junior High School had the greatest improvements. VLE improved 15.8 points and FJHS climbed 6.6 points.

The only school that did not improve was Ferriday Upper Elementary, with a score of 66, down .8 of a point from last year.

VJHS and VLE were awarded three stars out of five for their schools for the improvements they made.

Concordia Parish School Board Academic Director Paul Nelson said few schools in the state receive rankings higher than three stars.

“I don’t think there are any five stars and there are only a handful of four-star schools that I know of,” he said. “Most of the ones that are four stars are magnet schools.”

Nelson said the SPS level for an academically unacceptable school is 60.

“Anyone with a rating below 75 is said to be under an academic watch,” he said. “The spotlight is on these schools because in 2012, the AUS level will be at 75.”

The SPS for grades kindergarten through eighth grade are determined using test scores and attendance, with 90 percent going to the scores and 10 percent going toward attendance.

High schools SPS are determined using 70 percent on test scores and 30 percent on graduation index.

Superintendent Loretta Blankenstein said she was pleased with the overall performance of the schools in the parish.

“They did not all make their growth targets,” she said. “But we are continuing to focus on their efforts and we are definitely pushing for all of our schools to get to their goals.”

Blankenstein said the school board and the schools will continue to do what they can to help raise scores for next year.

“When a need is presented at one of our schools, we do what we can to help that need,” she said.

VJHS Principal Whest Shirley said his school’s new three-star rank is something he is proud to have.

“We went up around 1.5 points,” he said. “We wanted to see more growth, but we’ll take it.”

Shirley said the school still has work to do if they want to continue to make sure the students are getting the best possible education.

“We want to enjoy the success but we have to keep going,” he said. “We have a great staff and great students and we are looking to continue to improve.”

Shirley said VJHS is working on a new project to help the students and the school for next year.

“We are looking at having Saturday workshops for the parents,” he said. “We can get the parents up here on a Saturday morning and show them what we are doing in the school.”

FHS Principal Michelle Bethea said she was happy to see her school improve.

“I am always pleased with improvement,” she said. “We provide every opportunity for our students to achieve success.”

Bethea said the school is not where it needs to be, but the improvement in SPS shows steps in the right direction.

“We are always working on getting better,” she said.

Decreasing the number of instructional interruptions, continuing after-school tutoring and helping with math scores are all areas FHS is helping to continue progress, Bethea said.

Concordia Parish was also listed as one of the top 10 most improved parishes for cohort graduation rate, improving from a rate of 55.2 to 66.2, an increase of 19.93 percent.

Blankenstein said that while she was glad to see the rate increase, the district still has work to do when it comes to graduation.

“We are not satisfied with our graduation rate,” she said.

Nelson said that overall, this year’s SPS numbers were a step up from last year.

“We did not show as much growth as we would like, but we did show positive steps in nine out of 10 of our schools,” he said. “We are hoping next year to have growth at all of the schools.”