VIDALIA, La. — Today through Friday, about 550 Concordia Parish fourth- and eighth-graders will take the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program test — and the stakes are high.

For the first year, students who do not pass the LEAP test will not be promoted to the next grade. And this test, which is designed to show whether students are learning what the state expects them to learn, is not the type of test students have been used to in the past.

In addition to some multiple-choice questions, the test also features math word problems and English questions that require students to write out longer answers.

&uot;We’ve been preparing all year for this test,&uot;&160;said Superintendent Lester &uot;Pete&uot; Peterman.

Steps the district has taken to prepare students for LEAP included tweaking the curriculum to better meet state standards, performing more student assessments, going over practice questions and working on test-taking skills, he said.

&uot;And we’re building (students’) confidence that they can do well on this test,&uot;&160;Peterman added.

For the 1998-99 school year, Concordia Parish scored lower than the state average for both the math and language portions of the LEAP test. On LEAP, 51 percent of Concordia Parish 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 statistics from the Louisiana Department of Education.

On the English portion, 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. The state is holding schools accountable. Schools that don’t meet state-set goals for improving scores could see enrollment fall as parents are given the right to transfer their children to schools that meet testing goals.

And after that, schools that still don’t meet such goals could lose their state funding.

The Concordia Parish School District expect to receive this year’s LEAP scores by mid-May. District officials estimate that up to 150 students will fail the math section of the test, the language section or both.

Those who fail will be able to take summer school classes from May 29 to June 30 to brush up on their skills and will be required to retake the test in July.

The district expects to receive those scores in late August in order to determine which students will be promoted to the next grade.

Also this week, students in kindergarten and first, second, third, fifth and seventh grades will take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.

The Iowa Test is a national test of student achievement in reading, language arts, math, social studies, science and use of reference materials.