VIDALIA, La. — Turns out, Louisiana’s LEAP test may cause not just student anxiety, but financial snafus as well.

Because of the test, the $100,000 the Concordia Parish School District budgeted for summer school may not be enough, according to Superintendent Lester &uot;Pete&uot; Peterman.

Starting this March, fourth- and eighth-grade students in Louisiana must pass LEAP, a standardized math and language test, to pass to the next grade. And the district must give students who fail LEAP the chance to take summer classes to prepare to retake the test in July, according to state law. &uot;We will give them enough remediation to take the test, though we may have to cut back some (due to cost),&uot;&160;Peterman said. &uot;Or there may be other budget areas we could squeeze. But we’re already doing that. That’s what worries me.&uot;

Since the state only gives districts one month to hold such classes — in addition to regular summer school classes they offer — the district may have to hold those classes all day instead of the usual four hours a day.

And if classes are held all day, the district is required by law to feed the students and transport them to and from the schools where the classes will be held. Teachers who taught the full days would be paid for more hours worked and given more benefits.

But Peterman will not know how much the district can expect to pay for summer school until he gets an estimate of how many students will probably fail the LEAP test, based on how many failed a LEAP pretest.

Concordia Parish’s below-average LEAP scores in March made local headlines earlier this year

In Concordia Parish, 51 percent of fourth-graders scored &uot;basic&uot; or above on the language portion and 31 percent scored basic or higher on the math section, compared with 55 percent and 42 percent statewide, according to information from the Louisiana Department of Education.

On English, 34 percent of parish eighth-graders scored basic or above, while 24 percent scored at least basic on the math portion, compared to 43 percent and 38 percent statewide.