VIDALIA— Two days after four new principals were appointed in the Ferriday schools, a group of concerned citizens says it plans to resume a protest outside the Concordia Parish School District’s office in Vidalia.

Superintendent of Schools Paul Nelson said he appointed Ferriday Upper Elementary Principal Joyce Russ to Ferriday High School, promoted Ferriday Upper Elementary Assistant Principal Godfrey Carson to principal and moved Vidalia Upper Elementary Assistant Principal Julia Walker to Ferriday Lower Elementary’s principal’s office Monday.

Nelson said he also has hired Toyua Watson to be Ferriday Junior High Schools’ principal. Watson — a Ferriday graduate — was previously the assistant principal at Alexandria Middle Magnet School.

A coalition of members of the NAACP, We Care and the Tri-Parish Ministerial Alliance picketed outside the school district office Monday, and spokesman the Rev. Justin Conner said the protest would resume today from 9 a.m. until noon.

Conner said that while administrative changes in Ferriday schools are part of the group’s concerns, they aren’t the only ones. The protest was organized before the appointments.

“With these (administrative) changes the superintendent has put the schools in turmoil without a comprehensive plan,” Conner said. “When you ask them, ‘Where is the plan written in place that you can say, in 2017 this is what we can expect from Ferriday, and in 2019, what will it be?’ There is no plan.”

The new appointments follow the transfers of veteran principals to new schools at the end of the 2015 school year. Two of those principals — Rick Brown, formerly of Vidalia High School, and Bobbie Hinson, formerly of Ferriday Lower Elementary — have since retired. Brown had been transferred to Ferriday Lower and Hinson had been transferred to Ferriday Junior High.

Ferriday High School’s James Davis, who was not transferred, has since resigned to relocate to Atlanta to be with his family.

“Without a plan, new principals who come on site won’t be able to bring the schools up in one year,” Conner said. “It is an atrocity that will create a genocide in the Ferriday schools.”

Conner said he is also concerned about how the district has chosen to allocate funds to different schools and said if Ferriday schools had been treated “more fairly” they wouldn’t be in a failing or near failing state now.

For example, Conner said the district’s decision to open a magnet school in the former Ridgecrest school location in 2013 was detrimental to Ferriday schools.

“Ferriday schools are already failing, but you are going to open a whole other school to pull all the good students out of there?” he said.

“We have six school board members who represent Ferriday schools, and the schools are in the shape they’re in?” he said.

Nelson said he saw the protest earlier in the week, but “was not sure what they are really wanting to protest.”

“They are saying they want improvement at the Ferriday schools — well, we are in the summer,” he said. “If they had some genuine concern I could address instead of a global statement about wanting to improve our schools, I could help. I want to do that, too.”

Conner said the group picketing isn’t just about one-time action. Instead, he said, it has been meeting at noon every Tuesday at Mount Beulah Baptist Church in Ferriday with members of the community and some school board members.

The We Care coalition has several different subcommittees, and member James Lee — who was at one time the superintendent of schools — said he has been working with the school district since the school board charged the current superintendent to do so after a special meeting last month.

Lee — who said he would not be a part of the picketing action — said his goal is to help develop an action plan for the Ferriday schools.

“(Superintendent Paul Nelson) has been cooperating with us,” Lee said. “When he gives us all the information we need, we will sit down and discuss it.”

Lee said the action plans will be individualized by school, but will have to wait until principals are appointed.

“I understand the process and what he is focused on right now,” Lee said. “His main focus right now is the staff and schools, and when you are staffing principals it is not the easiest thing. I want him to get through that process and (then) start asking for things and have meetings with his people — which he said he would do.”

Nelson said he did not understand why the protest was organized because he felt the discussions between himself and Lee had gone well.

“We have had good conversations. I have known Mr. Lee since he was my junior high principal,” Nelson said. “I have known him for 30 years.

“This group has community representation because they have elected school board members, so I am not really clear on what they want. They say they want to work together, and then come up here and want to protest.

“We already struggle to find staff. Why cause chaos and dissuade people from coming to the Ferriday community to work?”