L’Observateur / July 5, 2000

Summer school and LEAP summer school are progressing with motivated students and high attendance, St. Charles Parish school officials say.St. James Parish officials agree and expect many students to pass the LEAP21 when retests are given this month.

Ray Poplus, director of instructional support for St. Charles Parish schools,said the regular summer school classes include 101 parish students and 34 students from out of St. Charles Parish, all being taught by seven teachers.Poplus said the out-of-parish students come from public school systems which do not offer summer school courses. Cost is $325 per course for out-of-parish and $290 per course for in-parish students and offer required courses in English, math, science and social studies.

“It’s always an option,” Poplus said.

The 120 instructional hours are spread out in four-hour blocks in 30 days.

This year’s summer school began June 12 and will end July 24. June 30marked the halfway point, also the end-point for students needing only a half-unit.

“It’s only for the removal of deficiencies,” Poplus said, adding summer school is not for elective or advance work.

Meanwhile, LEAP summer school for fourth- and eighth-grade students who failed to pass either of the math or language arts tests in the spring and who need it to advance to the next grade is also progressing, according to Rachel Allemand, executive director of curriculum, instruction and assessment.

Allemand said the 50 hours of remedial instruction in math and the 56 hours of instruction in language arts are being presented to 220 students, 93 percent of those eligible.

Allemand added that the remaining eligible students either acquired waivers or moved out of the school system.

Work is going well, she added, with the teachers working to help the students catch up to be eligible to move either into fifth grade or high school.

“We’re trying not to make it too grueling,” Allemand said. “We don’t wantthis to be punitive.”Attendance has been excellent and attitude has been good for the most part.

“The students are taking it very seriously,” she continued.

Student-teacher ratios are roughly eight to 15 students per teacher, insuring much of the personal attention most of these students require.

“We know we couldn’t have 25 students in a class and meet their needs,” Allemand said.

St. James got a “jumpstart” on their summer LEAP remediation, said JanieVee Henderson, assistant superintendent.

For five hours a day 178 students have been bearing down on the books since before regular school was out. By the end of the remediation from June5 to June 29 the students will have had 58 hours of study, said Henderson.

There have been significant improvements in the level of passing since the 1998-99 school year’s LEAP scores. In fourth grade language arts heldsteady at 75 percent passing, while in math the percentage of passing increased by 13 percent to 75 percent passing. The state average forfourth-graders passing the math section is only 71 percent.

In eight grade the district improved 10 percent to 89 percent passing in the language arts studies. In math the percentage of passing students rose 12percent to 52 percent.

There was a definite increase in student achievement in the last school year, said Henderson. She expects the results to continue to improve with theremediation program, estimating at least 50 percent of the remediation students entering into the next grade level.

Out of the current teachers working for the school system, 18 were specially chosen for the summer remediation.

“We’re very proud to have a best teachers” on the project, said Henderson.

The teachers, being hired for their proficiency in the subject areas, were also given an extra three days of training to help the students scores improve.

For those fourth-graders who do not pass the remediation exam, they will return to retake fourth grade. Eight-graders that do not pass theremediation exam will move on to high school to a special 8.5 grade level.There they will continue to work on eighth-grade language arts and math, while being able to take other electives at the ninth-grade level.

Henderson believes the extra summer work is having a good effect on the students. The attendance for the remediation is on average 87 percent, saidHenderson.

“You can really see the students are going. Motivation is good, and they’reworking hard,” Henderson added.

The teachers are using the Steck-Vaughn remediation course work, piloted by the school system last year. The course work is well designed toefficiently help students with the LEAP 21 tests. As well as normalclasswork, the students are also using computer programs to study their subjects.

Retests are just around the corner. The math tests will be given July 6 andlanguage arts tests on July 10-11. Test results won’t be received until Aug.4 for eighth-graders and Aug. 14 for fifth-graders.Meanwhile, these students are double-enrolled in each grade so as to ease the enrollment process, depending on the test results.

(Reporters Leonard Gray and Daniel Tyler Gooden contributed to this story.)

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