LEAP and the Louisiana Art Classroom

Quick answer: Plan LEAP season around the two grades under the most pressure. Louisiana ties promotion at fourth and eighth grade to LEAP results, so those students are pulled for intervention long before the window opens, and high school art loses mornings to LEAP High School end-of-course exams. Teach finishable work, name the Louisiana Student Standards you are assessing, and mark on the day.

Why do fourth and eighth grade feel different in Louisiana?

Louisiana attaches LEAP results to a promotion decision at fourth and eighth grade, with limited good-cause exemptions. Those two cohorts spend the spring in additional reading and math groups, and the thing moved to make room is usually the specials rotation. An art teacher can lose the same class three weeks running while every other grade carries on as normal.

High school runs on its own rhythm. LEAP High School end-of-course exams in English I and II, Algebra I, Geometry, US History and Biology are required for graduation, so those mornings shut down half the building. Art rooms with sinks and big tables make attractive testing sites, which means your materials spend the window on a cart in a corridor.

What should fourth and eighth graders make during LEAP season?

Give them a finish line inside one period. A student who spent the morning in a testing room has no second sustained effort left, but will cut, fold and arrange for forty minutes and leave with a finished object. Keep the demonstration to five minutes and put the remaining time in their hands, where it does more good.

Autumn Tree Craft – Hands-On Fall Worksheet for Grades K–4 fits that description for kindergarten through fourth grade: one sheet, one session, and a result that goes on the corridor wall the same afternoon. Print a class set before the window opens, because the copier queue in April belongs to the testing coordinators. Store the finished pieces flat, since display space gets claimed for other things first.

What do high school students do while end-of-course exams run?

Older students in a broken week need a task with reading in it, not just making. A visual-analysis day sits well beside an English or US History end-of-course exam, because the habits overlap: identify the device, name its effect, support the claim with what is actually on the page. Students recognize the move, which lowers the resistance.

Analysing Political Speeches – Rhetoric and Stylistic Devices gives grades 9 through 12 a structured route through rhetoric and stylistic devices with answer keys, and it works whether you are teaching your own section or covering a class during an exam morning. Pair one speech with one poster or campaign image, then ask students to write which of the two argues harder, and why.

How do I keep the year coherent through all of this?

Write the LEAP dates into your unit plan before you write the units. Anything needing four consecutive sessions goes in the fall or after the window; anything self-contained goes in the spring. Mark the Louisiana Student Standards against each unit while you place it, because that mapping is what gets asked for when a schedule is questioned later.

If you are building a whole high school year, Art Complete – Ready-to-Use Curriculum for High School Art (Grades 9–12) sequences one in a form you can shuffle around testing weeks. Louisiana teachers wanting material by grade band can start from Louisiana Teaching Resources & Worksheets (Grades K–12). Departments planning across state lines will find neighboring exam calendars gathered on Deep South Teaching Resources (AL, AR, LA, MS, SC), which helps when your feeder schools sit near the Mississippi or Arkansas line.

Frequently asked questions

Does LEAP assess art?

No. LEAP covers the tested academic subjects, and the high school end-of-course exams sit in English, mathematics, US History and Biology. Nothing in a score report describes studio work, so your own rubrics and photographs are the record for art. Keep them dated, because a spring schedule is not reconstructable from memory in June.

Are these resources aligned to the Louisiana Student Standards?

They are written as general units and you map them yourself, which takes about a line per unit in your planner. These are independent teaching materials sold by an independent store. They are not affiliated with, approved by or endorsed by the Louisiana Department of Education or any other education agency.

My room is a testing site for two weeks. What can I still teach?

Pack a cart: pre-cut paper, one tub of shared supplies, printed task cards and a folder of finished examples. Choose projects with no drying time and a small footprint, then run them wherever you are placed. Save anything wet, heavy or spread over several sessions until the window closes.

Related reading

• Mapping Art Units to the Student Standards in Louisiana
• Teaching Art on No Budget in Louisiana
• Louisiana Teaching Resources & Worksheets (Grades K–12)