The Iberia Parish School Board celebrated the results of the recently released LEAP testing results from the school district at Wednesday’s meeting.

Superintendent of Schools Heath Hulin said the partially released data showed great strides for the district, and that the rest of the data would be released sometime in October.

Out of the 70 testing districts that took part in LEAP testing, Iberia Parish ultimately ranked 23rd in all tests combined, 18th in English Language Arts, 21st in Math, 27th in Science and 26th in Social Studies.

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Allison O’Donnell said 34% scored at mastery or advanced level and the district experienced a 3% increase in Mastery and above with a gain of 1 percent. Fourteen out of 23 test sites in the district scored at or above state average levels and 19 out of 23 schools had an increase in the assessment index which O’Donnell called “phenomenal.”

“Those rankings are important because historically Iberia Parish fell in the middle around 30 or 35th,” Hulin said. “For this testing cycle we moved to that upper third. To place 18th is really something to hang our hat on.”

When asked what led to the academic improvements in the school district, Hulin credited the extra resources poured into the district following COVID-19.

“I think we’ve poured extra resources since COVID into remediation and working with our teachers,” he said. “We have master teachers on campus looking at individual students and we put some benchmark tests on the way so we’re not waiting until the end of the year to give us an idea if our students are on track.”

Hulin said he expects those improvements to continue into the future as master teachers in the district continue working with the curriculum.

Other improvements noted with the scores included a 2 point improvement for grades 3-8, which put the Iberia Parish School District 2 points ahead of the average of the state.

For English Language Arts in grades 3-8 the district grew 4 points for Mastery and advanced levels, as well as a 3 point growth in Math that put the district 4 points above the state level.