Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Pupil Progression topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Livingston Parish committee approves 2025-26 pupil progression plan, tightens early-grade promotion rules
Summary
The Livingston Parish Curriculum and Policy Committee approved updates to the 2025-26 pupil progression plan that require kindergarten-through-second-grade students to meet both literacy and numeracy thresholds for promotion, set a 60% unit-test passing average for promotion consideration, and standardize terminology across the document.
The Livingston Parish Curriculum and Policy Committee approved revisions to the district's pupil progression plan for the 2025-26 school year, adopting tighter promotion criteria for early grades and several technical changes to unit-credit and terminology rules.
Curriculum Director Beth Johnson told the committee that "the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and LDOE require assurances that we form a committee to update and revise the pupil progression yearly," and that Livingston Parish used a 23-member committee to develop the changes.
The most consequential change requires kindergarten through second-grade students to meet both math and English thresholds to be promoted. Johnson said students must "score above the well below category of both the literacy and numeracy" assessments to be considered for promotion. She described the reason for aligning numeracy with literacy goals: "we noticed that some students can fail math all the way through, until they get to sixth grade. So it is not setting up a good foundation for numeracy for those students."
Other technical changes approved include: a requirement that students pass unit tests with an average of 60% to be considered for promotion (to align with the state's 10-point grading scale), standardizing terminology so that phrases such as "intensive" are replaced with "well below," and revising unit-credit rules so a semester-length foreign language half-unit may count as a full one-unit credit if taken for a full year. Health and physical education were clarified to total one unit (a half unit for health and a half for PE, or a single PE unit where a school offers only PE).
The plan also clarifies promotion-in-conflict procedures for students transferring between campuses: School-Based Leadership Committee (SBLC) promotion-in-conflict decisions for a transferring student must include representatives from both the sending and receiving principalships so the receiving school can plan supports. Johnson said the third-grade retention statute remains in effect and "will not be overruled unless good cause exemption" is granted. The plan includes an age-related provision that a student who will be 12 on or before Sept. 30 may be considered for promotion from third to fourth grade, and states that a student who fails three or more subjects is ineligible for promotion.
A board member asked about the logistics of joint SBLC meetings involving principals from two campuses; Johnson said schools typically compile lists of students being promoted in conflict and review them together at year-end rather than holding multiple separate meetings.
Board member Cecil Harris moved to accept the 2025-26 pupil progression plan; the motion was seconded by board member Link and carried on a voice vote. The committee did not record individual roll-call vote counts in the transcript supplied; the clerk recorded the motion as carried.
The committee adjourned following the vote.
The adopted changes will be incorporated into the district's 2025-26 pupil progression plan document and align local promotion criteria and terminology with state assessment language and the state grading scale.
