(The Center Square) — At the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Superintendent Advisory Council meeting Monday, officials discussed new computer science standards, high dosage tutoring and field test participation.
The Louisiana Department of Education presented the new computer science education plan which aims to improve student digital literacy based on the provisions in Act 211, which passed in the 2024 regular session.
The standards have separate goals for grades kindergarten through fifth grade, sixth through eighth grades and grades nine through 12. The goals are based on five core concepts: Computing systems, network and the internet, data and analysis, algorithms and programming and impacts of computing.
The department wants to implement this plan by the 2025-2026 school year.
The state board hasn’t approved course requirements yet for graduation but do expect a baseline implementation of the plan. That could mean creating a new course on it’s own or integration into current computer science classes.
Act 771 was also passed this session and it requires all students in grades kindergarten through fifth who failed to achieve mastery on any statewide assessment in reading or math to be eligible for expanded academic support.
The department acknowledged that every superintendent identified their eligible students and submitted their plan to abide by the act. The department also said they’ve been approving those plans and providing feedback for the last couple of weeks.
A board member pointed out that it’s common for school systems to use computer programs for this expanded academic support. In that vein, they wanted to encourage educators to make a concerted effort to still pull small groups of students together for direct, human instruction.
The department also praised schools across the state for great communication strategies with parents, especially in third grade.
The revision at hand addresses the wording/naming of statewide assessment types.
Currently, policy specifically references Louisiana Educational Assessment Program tests for field testing requirements. However, when originally adopted, LEAP was understood as an acronym, and has since became a word used to describe a particular set of tests.
The suggestion is to remove the wording specifying LEAP, which some interpret mean to a specific assessment program. These field testing requirements would be in policy for all state-administered assessments.
Other provisions were discussed to improve dyslexia testing and student eligibility for course alignment. All agenda items were received with no pushback.
