VIDALIA — While the Louisiana average graduation rate has improved since 2006, Concordia Parish School District’s rate has dipped.

Students in the parish graduated in four years at a rate of 81.5 percent in 2006, but that figure has dipped to 73.5 percent for the year ended 2015. Meanwhile, during that same time period, the state average increased from 64.8 percent to 77.5 percent.

Parish Director of Secondary Education Rhonda White Wilson said the school system is working to improve its graduation rate.

“The district has been putting a variety of measures into place to encourage our students to complete their education and to assist our schools in tracking students as they progress from grade to grade,” she said. “Hopefully, next year’s graduation rate will demonstrate more growth.”

Nationally, the most recent graduation statistics come from 2013, in which the average was 82 percent.

The most recent figures that could be obtained for individual schools were for the 2013-14 school year.

Ferriday High School graduated at a 76 percent rate.

Monterey High School graduated students at a rate greater than 95 percent rate in 2014.

Vidalia High School graduated students within four years at a rate of 82 percent.

Data could not be obtained for the Concordia Education Center.

The Louisiana average trails Mississippi’s average by approximately 1 percentage point. The Concordia Schools’ graduation rate on average is ahead of Natchez High School’s rate, which is 71.7 percent.

Around Louisiana, gains made by African-American students outpaced the average as a whole, increasing 3.5 percentage points from 67.9 in 2014 to 71.4 in 2015. Since 2010, the graduation rate of African-American students has increased 12.5 percentage points, from 58.9 percent.

Since 2012, the state’s average has increased every year, though Concordia Parish’s has been up and down. That said, the parish graduation rate is overall up from 2012 when the average was 69.5 percent.

State Superintendent John White thanked the hard work of students, families and educators, but he said there is still work to be done.

“At the same time, we must recognize that in today’s economy, simply having a high school diploma is not enough to achieve upward mobility and high wage employment,” he said. “Therefore, we are committed to increasing the graduation rate while making sure a Louisiana high school diploma is the springboard to college, career and life success.”