VIDALIA — Louisiana’s 2011 spring testing results have arrived, and along with them came a small bit of good news for Concordia Parish schools.

Students in grades three through 11 were tested, and Concordia Parish saw a 1 percent increase in the number of students scoring basic and above, going from 62 percent in 2010 to 63 .

“We always strive to do the best we can,” Superintendent Loretta Blankenstein said. “We were expecting a larger gain, and we will have to continue to see what we can work on to get the gains we believe we can make.”

Students in grades four, eight, 10 and 11 took high-stakes tests, which require students to achieve a certain score to proceed to the next grade.

Fourth and eighth graders took the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program exam, while 10th-grade and 11th-grade students took the Graduation Exit Examination.

Students in grades 3, 5, 6 and 7 took the iLeap assessment test. iLeap does not determine whether students will proceed to the next grade.

Concordia Parish Academic Director Paul Nelson said that the LEAP testing requires students to make a basic level and an approaching basic level on either one of their math or English exams to move on to the next grade.

The biggest gains were among the fourth graders, 73 percent of who met promotional standards. The percentage was up 11 points from last year’s 62 percent.

The percentage of eighth graders making the grade dropped 2 percent from 72 percent in 2010 to 70 percent this year.

Nelson said even with the drop in eighth graders meeting the promotional standard, the improvement they made in English and language arts was very encouraging.

“Fourth-and-eighth-grade English scores were probably our best improvements,” he said.

The number of fourth graders scoring basic or above on their English portion rose 16 percent this year, going from 48 percent in 2010 to 64 percent, while eighth graders scoring basic or above increased 6 percent from 62 percent to 68 percent.

The percentage of students scoring basic or above in grades three, 10 and 11 also improved in English.

“We had some great improvements,” Blankenstein said. “And English and language arts was definitely one of those areas.”

While English scores were improving, Nelson said the area needing the most improvement in the parish is math.

“The numbers that are always a little bit lower throughout the state in math,” he said. “English and math are the two most important categories that are looked at.”

Grades four and six were the only two in the parish to see gains in the percentage of students scoring basic or higher in math from 2010.

Grades five and seven saw the biggest drop in basic or above percentages with 4 percent fewer students hitting the mark.

Nelson said the school board is going to do its best to work on improving the parish’s math scores.

“We are looking at putting math training into the second grade,” he said. “We are hoping this will improve their computational skills, so we are going to continue to try and do some more things with that.”

Nelson said math scores are harder to improve upon because of a shortage of qualified teachers.

“We always seem to be looking for math teachers,” he said. “We struggle to keep certified math teachers every year. They are hard to come by.”

Science scores for parish students improved across the board, with only grades five and seven seeing a decrease in the percentage of students scoring basic or higher from 2010.

Sixth grade saw the biggest increase in students scoring basic or above in science, at 12 percent, going from 54 percent in 2010 to 66 percent.

Nelson said science scores are generally lower because of they are given on the last day.

“In grades three through eight the science test is given on the last day, and the students are tired,” he said. “They also know that it doesn’t count as much as the English and math portions, so some of them don’t try as hard.”

Nelson said area fourth graders did the best overall on their performance, increasing the percentage of students achieving basic or higher in every subject by at least 7 percent.

“They did a wonderful job,” he said.

On the other hand, Concordia Parish fifth graders were the biggest problem in the parish, declining in every subject.

“Overall, fifth grade just did not do very well,” Nelson said. “We are still looking at that trying to figure out what happened.”

Fifth-grade English scores dropped from 65 percent in 2010 scoring basic or higher to 55 percent. Math scores dropped from 69 to 65 percent, science from 64 to 53 percent and social studies from 63 to 59 percent.

“This is something we are going to have to work on,” Nelson said. “We were not happy with these scores.”

Overall, Blankenstein said the parish’s scores were an improvement from last year, but they still needed some work.

“In education, there is always room for improvement with test scores,” she said. “No matter what they are, I would say that we should never be satisfied. We should always strive to be better.”

Blankenstein said it is still too early to tell where the most improvements are needed.

“It really takes time to try and look at the scores to try and figure out what needs to be done,” she said. “It takes all of us at the school board sitting down together trying to look at every single thing that needs to be done.”

Nelson said the school board will continue evaluating the scores to see where any improvements need to be made.