Additional Advanced Placement course offerings are on the agenda for approval at Summerville Union High School for the 2014-15 school year.

  Superintendent Robert Griffith hopes to maximize student potential throughout their high school careers by changing how SUHS staff and students approach AP: offering more AP classes, utilizing a broad range of resources, promoting study sessions, and requiring students to take the AP exam at the end of the year.

  “For our students that really have goals on going to college or a university, we need to make the bar higher so they have to extend,” said Mr. Griffith. “Instead of being on cruise control during high school, let’s prepare them for the future.”

  Summerville currently offers four AP classes: Literature, Calculus, U.S. History, and Spanish. Fifty-three students are enrolled in at least one of these rigorous courses. Setting a long-term goal of higher academic achievement, Mr. Griffith evaluated the school’s academic standings holistically in order to determine areas in need of improvement.

  While news of the raised academic expectations has drawn support from students and staff alike, it has also drawn mixed emotions from others. Current AP student, Bianca Nieh, supports the superintendent’s decision to make the AP test mandatory.

  She revealed, “I feel that we’ve worked so hard the whole time, it would probably just be beneficial to take the test.”

  This seems to be a consensus among those familiar with AP courses. However, not all students are in favor of this new requirement.

  Gabriele Grande-Edralin, who is currently enrolled in AP classes, doesn't believe the test should be required because it is an inefficient method of testing knowledge.

  She said, "Considering the high standards that are expected from the AP test in the limited amount of time given, I do not think it is a practical way for students to demonstrate their abilities."

  AP teachers Ms. Hallinan, Mr. Krueger, and Mr. Smith agreed that these expectations are consistent with their current goals.

  Halfway through his first year of teaching AP U.S. History, Mr. Smith already has plans to implement Saturday study sessions in April, the month before students will take the test.

  He also recognizes the importance of using test questions to ensure that “the vernacular used by the test makers is somewhat familiar [to students].”

  These plans coincide with Mr. Griffith’s goal of preparing students for the test specifically through the further expansion of study sessions and utilization of released questions.

  Six-year AP Calculus teacher Mr. Krueger already takes advantage of released AP test questions.

  He designed his current curriculum in a manner that allows his students to “work on questions from study guides all year, and right before the AP test [they] spend a month on released questions.”

  College Board, the organization that runs the AP program, “endorses” five-day AP Summer Institutes, which typically help potential AP teachers prepare for the new curriculum.

  Ms. Hallinan, who regularly attends these institutes, has alternatively taught AP Literature and AP Language for the last ten years. She expressed her support for more teachers, including those who teach only college prep classes at Summerville, to participate in AP training.

  Ms. Hallinan said it was “one of the most helpful professional development courses I have attended in my entire career.”

  With the implementation of new AP courses, Mr. Griffith hopes to begin scaling back the number of honors classes offered, saying, “We don’t have enough students to be stratifying them between a college prep class, an honors class, and an AP. This is all a part of a long-term [process].”

 

  However, Mr. Griffith believes the paradigm shift is necessary for a number of reasons.

 

  He said, “If a student can pass four to eight AP courses, they’ve just almost wiped out an entire freshman year of college.”

 

  This is possible because the AP program grants college credit to students who pass the course and achieve high scores on the AP exam.  

 

  Depending on the college, Mr. Griffith noted that students can potentially save “hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars each [semester].”

 

  Mr. Griffith has begun the process of getting these new expectations approved by the Board of Education.

 

  Wednesday, January 22, the Board approved AP Statistics. They meet on February 12 to make decisions concerning the approval of new classes and whether or not the AP exam will become mandatory.