BATON ROUGE (AP) — The state education department missed an Aug. 1 deadline to release school performance scores for its lowest performing schools, and has yet to announce a new release date.

The delay means parents at these schools have less time to take advantage of federally mandated private tutoring or school choice.

Scott Norton, assistant superintendent for the department’s student and school performance office, blamed the delay on three factors: testing students in April rather than in March as the state has done in the past; a decision to give alternate schools a school performance score rather than leaving that choice to individual school districts; and budget cuts that have shrunk ‘‘accountability analysis’’ staff from nine to just four people.

Louisiana has received a waiver from the federal government for this school year. Next year, federal officials are insisting that all states release school performance scores at least 14 days before the start of school.

‘‘We don’t like being late,’’ Norton said. ‘‘We will try not to let it happen again.’’

Norton said his best guess is that his office will have scores for low-performing schools ready for release by the end of this week.

All other public schools will get scores probably in late September.

Alternative schools, however, will not get scores until the state resolves an internal debate about how best to measure performance at these schools, he said.

Thanks to a new federal waiver, schools newly identified as low-performing can offer private tutoring first and, if still low-performing a year later, have to offer school choice, which is much more disruptive. In past years, the reverse was true, with choice coming first then private tutoring a year later.

‘‘If we had to be late, this is probably the year to do it,’’ Norton said.

Norton said his office is trying to prevent a repeat. It is retraining other staff at the state Department of Education to help crunch testing numbers and other student data, which make up the school scores, he said.