ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / August 15, 2000

RESERVE – Fourth-grader public school students in St. John the BaptistParish seemed to fare a bit better in their LEAP scores than their eighth- grade counterparts.

The state released preliminary fourth-grade LEAP scores for summer school on Tuesday, and overall the scores are good, even though the St. John ParishSchool System administration said there is room for improvement.

A total of 285 regular and special education fourth-grade students took the LEAP remediation course and exam this summer. Of those, 44 percentpassed the language arts section of the test and 41 percent passed the math part of the exam. This compares to 38 percent of eighth-graders whopassed the language arts and 31 percent who passed the math.

When broken down into two groups, the fourth-grade regular students had a 58 percent passing rate in language arts and 50.9 percent passed the mathportion. In the special education group 26 percent passed the language artsand 21 percent passed the math section.

Students who did not pass the LEAP test will have to repeat the fourth- grade.

Assistant Superintendent Wilbert Ocmond said more study will have to be done on the scores before a definite answer can be made on why the fourth- graders did better than the eighth-graders.

“My guess is that these kids had more of an opportunity with the benchmarks,” said Ocmond. “The program was more conducive for thembecause they have been studying for the tests longer. Plus, they had moreincentive to pass.”Ocmond said the students who failed the summer LEAP exam will stay in fourth-grade as 4T students. They will take remedial courses to help thempass the LEAP exam in March, plus they will also take fifth-grade courses and study for the ITBS exam to be given to fifth-graders. If a 4T studentpasses the LEAP exam in March, they will be promoted to the sixth grade.

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