By LEONARD GRAY

St. Charles Parish public schools can be congratulated for continuing their drive to excellence, as shown by the latest LEAP, Iowa Tests and ACT results.

If anyone doubts how tough the LEAP questions are, two samples were provided to the St. Charles Parish School Board this week. Take a shot at one of them:

“Serena’s parents drove her to the Gulf Coast beach. The trip from home to the beach took 2.5 hours at an average speed of 56 mph. On the return trip, they drove at an average speed of 60 mph.

• How far is the beach from their home?

• The following week they went back to the beach. Due to highway roadwork, they knew that they would drive at an average speed of 45 mph. What time must they leave from home to arrive at the beach at 9 a.m.?”

That sort of thinking is on the LEAP test administered to eighth-graders. Solving questions such as these will allow them to reach high school.

It is good to know our students are being held to standards higher than in the past, all in an effort to adequately prepare them for the future.

Iowa Test percentile rankings continued to show St. Charles Parish with a marked improvement over state and national averages, consistently, during a three-year period. It’s excellence for the long haul and makes graduates able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their fellows from across the nation.

American College Tests, which measure a student’s preparedness for college, shows a steady increase in average composite scores, far better than the state average and nearing the national average.

St. Charles Parish educators may be proud, but none are so proud as the parents of these hard-working and well-educated students. And the students themselves may be justifiably proud of their accomplishments.

LEONARD GRAY is assistant managing editor of L’Observateur.