By Kyle Roberts
BATON ROUGE — Following the release of the 2025 Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) scores statewide, Lincoln Parish’s overall 42 percent Mastery+ in Grades 3-8 puts the district in the top ten in Louisiana in student proficiency.
The score is also seven points higher than the state average of 35 percent. In North Louisiana, only DeSoto Parish was tied with Lincoln Parish for the highest score in the region.
“We’re very happy to see the growth,” Lincoln Parish School Board Superintendent Ricky Durrett said. “One point does not seem like a lot, but it shows growth and our district continuing in an upward movement. We’re proud of that accomplishment for our teachers, administrators, students and their families.”
Specifically, Durrett said he was pleased with the improvement in math scoring, as Lincoln Parish scored two percentage points higher this year as compared to last year (40 percent in 2024 to 42 percent in 2025)
“That was good for us to see,” Durrett said. “Our math scores had been lagging behind English, and we’re seeing improvement catching up with that.”
In science, the district dropped by one point (36 percent to 35 percent from last year).
“We’re a little disappointed in that,” Durrett said of Science. “We’re still implementing a new curriculum there (OpenSciEd), so hopefully over the next few years we’ll see growth there, too.”
English stayed the same at 48 percent in comparison to last year.
In individual schools in the parish, I.A. Lewis had the biggest jump overall — going from 25 percent in 2024 to 35 percent this year.
“I.A. Lewis saw huge growth this year — the school has had some struggles in the last few years, but we’re really proud of the work by the administrators, teachers, kids and families,” Durrett said. “It was huge growth across the board in all subjects. We’re really proud of the work they did.”
The school board will meet tonight at 6 p.m. for its July 2025 session.
