The Natchitoches Parish School Board received an update from Superintendent Grant Eloi regarding the new LEAP 2025 data recently released by the Louisiana Department of Education at the Board meeting on Aug. 5.
- Grades 3-8
- From 2019 to 2021, the number of students scoring Mastery or above saw a decrease; 2 percentage points in grades 3-8 and 3 percentage points in grades 9-12. This decrease was felt across all grade levels, content areas and student subgroups.
- Simultaneously, learning gaps deepened, as evidenced by a 5 percentage point increase in the number of students scoring Unsatisfactory. This disproportionately impacted:
- Economically disadvantaged students
- Students in the earlier tested grades (e.g., grades 3 and 4)
- Scores earned in mathematics
- Grades 9-12
- Across all subjects, the number of students scoring Mastery and above declined by 5 percentage points since 2019.
- In each individual subject, the number of students scoring Mastery and above has decreased since 2019.
- Algebra I saw the greatest decline (-9 percentage points) from 2019 – 2021, and English II had the smallest decline (-2 percentage points).
Eloi said the Natchitoches Parish School District is not where he wants it to be with LEAP scores…yet. He wants the district’s proficiency (mastery and advanced combined) to be somewhere in the high 40s to 50s range. This year it wasn’t that the schools didn’t focus on academics. Teachers had so many other things to deal with (pandemic, weather events, multiple quarantines, etc.) that a lot of time they weren’t able to focus on academics.
“I am through the roof that I can tell you that we maintained this year, not only did we maintain in a Covid year, but we maintained better than the vast majority of school districts in the state,” said Eloi.
Most school districts lost 4 points or worse. Natchitoches Parish only lost 2 points in 3-8th grade and only 3 points for high school.
“I think we can all contextualize that this is a win,” he added.
The school district focuses too much on liberal ideology instead of teaching facts.
We aren’t as bad as some other districts? Nice spin
Stop reading headlines, make the teachers go back to work, let the children breathe freely, and stop the online madness. You want to talk relativism? Do this and Natchitoches Parish will outshine all the others in the state.
Has that ever been the case in the past?
Victor, you must be very far removed from what actually went on this past school year. Pandemic. Hurricane and two ice storms. One event alone could have affected students parents or teachers.
No you act as though there has never been environmental challenges to the education system. Only in the last 20 to 30 years have probably well meaning people found excuse after excuse to “reason” away failure. Ice storms, hurricanes, and flu didn’t magically appear this past year, what appeared in the past three decades are people as you that like to ignore the failures of the education system. Thanks for making my point.
More excuses, losing is losing and comparing to other districts is useless. I guess it’s time for BESE to lower the bar again. SMH