This is the fourth and final in a series of stories looking at the academic rankings of Concordia Parish Schools.

This is the fourth and final in a series of stories looking at the academic rankings of Concordia Parish Schools.

VIDALIA &8212; Ten miles and about 35 academic performance points separate the two major sets of schools in the Concordia Parish School District.

And whatever&8217;s lost on the drive from Vidalia to Ferriday isn&8217;t something that&8217;s easy to fix, school officials said.

Vidalia Lower, Upper and Junior High have two stars on the state&8217;s ranking system. Vidalia High has three.

Ferriday High School is a one-star school, and the three other Ferriday schools don&8217;t get any stars at all.

&8220;I don&8217;t think it&8217;s that we aren&8217;t working and trying (in Ferriday),&8221; Superintendent Kerry Laster said. &8220;I do think we&8217;ve got a long way to go.&8221;

And it really all boils down to that starting point.

In 1998, the earliest year School Performance Scores are available on the state&8217;s Web site, FLES scored 37.6. VLES scored 77.6. The schools earned a 55.7 and a 95.8 respectively.

Do the math and the two schools have improved at almost exactly the same rate. It&8217;s more or less the same at the upper and junior as well.

The similarities don&8217;t end there.

At the lower and upper schools in both towns, every teacher on staff is certified. At VJHS all teachers are certified, and at FJHS 27 of 29 teachers are certified. The two without certification have college degrees that are in a field other than education, and they&8217;ll be certified soon, Personnel Director Ann Sandidge said.

And schools in both towns get the same amount of base money, Director of Federal Programs Julius Huhn said.

Ferriday schools actually receive more money because they have more students receiving free or reduced lunch.

And the differences aren&8217;t excuses, Laster said.

At FLES only two children meet the financial requirements to pay for their lunch. At VLES, more than 200 students do.

Parents attend after-school events in both towns, but Ferriday principals have repeatedly asked parents to spend more time studying with their children at home.

&8220;Parental involvement and poverty, we can&8217;t fix that,&8221; Laster said. &8220;It&8217;s easy to say it&8217;s lack of parental involvement and poverty, but you can&8217;t fix some things and you must focus on the things you can fix.&8221;

Those things are obviously going to have an effect, she said, but the district can&8217;t dwell on them.

&8220;It doesn&8217;t mean you change your expectations or you change the quality of instruction you provide for those students,&8221; Laster said. &8220;You&8217;ve got to look for good teachers that have good instructional strategies.&8221;

Finding those teachers is a major challenge though, she said.

The district no longer hires non-certified teachers, which makes the pool a little smaller. Louisiana ranks at the bottom of the national charts when it comes to teacher pay, below Mississippi.

Convincing teachers to come to rural Concordia Parish when they can go elsewhere and make more money isn&8217;t a fair game to play, Sandidge said.

Convincing them to drive 10 more miles and teach at a high-poverty rate school with low performance scores is bound to be harder.

&8220;I can&8217;t keep and retain teachers (in Ferriday),&8221; Laster said. &8220;I have openings now. I don&8217;t even have an applicant. I don&8217;t even have a warm body.&8221;

Often, the district fills positions, spends the time and money to train teachers, and loses them. They usually go out-of-district, she said and sometimes they go to Vidalia schools.

The turnover is not as high in Vidalia, Laster said.

&8220;That&8217;s a real frustrating thing,&8221; she said. &8220;When you have a revolving door like that it&8217;s hard to keep consistency.&8221;

That&8217;s not to say there aren&8217;t some very good teachers in Ferriday, Laster said.

&8220;Every school, whether it&8217;s Vidalia, Ferriday, Shreveport or Baton Rouge, has good and bad teachers,&8221; she said.

Ferriday principals point to the fact that Vidalia openings are typically filled before Ferriday ones.

Sandidge said she doesn&8217;t hire teachers for certain schools but for the whole district. When applications come in, principals have the opportunity to set up interviews and offer the job.

From there it&8217;s up to the teacher to choose where he or she wants to go.

&8220;Sometimes it&8217;s, I live in this town, I have kids in this school, or I live in Natchez and I don&8217;t want to drive that much more,&8221; Sandidge said.

Laster said district officials have discussed incentives for choosing one school or another, but those things have to be worked into the budget.

&8220;It&8217;s our goal at the central office to take the ones we want to improve and provide them the support and kinds of learning opportunities they need to make them better teachers,&8221; Laster said. &8220;If we aren&8217;t doing that, we aren&8217;t doing our job.&8221;