WAFB Channel 9, Baton Rouge, LA |12-year-old with special needs stuck in LEAP Test loss

12-year-old with special needs stuck in LEAP Test loss

By Caroline Moses - bio | email

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - A growing number of Louisiana students are not moving forward because of LEAP Test loss. All students, even those with special needs, have to take the same LEAP Test to move past the fourth grade, and again to get past eighth grade.

The test has become a nightmare for many parents and students. If students fail the LEAP Test, they must repeat the same grade. That's what happened to a 12-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, attention deficit disorder, and developmental delay. Now he, his mother, and others are fighting for a change. "It's not fair to me that other kids pass and I don't," says Darrell Jingles. "He's in the fourth grade again. Second time for repeat," says Penny Decuir, Darrell's mother.

Darrell Jingles failed the LEAP Test this past school year, so he took it again this summer. He came close, but fell short by one point. That leaves him back where he started one year ago. "I want to go to the fifth grade ‘cause my friends are there," he says. "He was at school hysterical. He didn't want to stay at school. He's losing material which should be taught to him," his mother says.

Decuir says her son made As and Bs on his report card, so learning the lessons again will not be productive. "He shouldn't be held to the same standards as other kids, with his special needs." Decuir says she works with her son at home on his lessons, but as a single mother who works as a nurse and with two other children in magnet schools, there is only so much supplementing she can do. She cannot afford a private school and she cannot afford to stay home. "We're stuck trying to fight through an appeal. We're doing a re-score to try and get him to move to a higher grade."

All that takes time, so in the meantime, Darrell is stuck in LEAP Test loss. "I tries my best," he says. "It destroys his hope moving forward. It takes away from his spirit," his mother says. Darrell's dream is to finish high school and college, so he can one day work as a chef. However, if laws stay the way they are, he'll have to first pass the LEAP Test.