AP-titude

At the start of the February 14th School Board meeting there was a set of parents that spoke under non agenda public comment about Advanced Placement classes at Alameda High School. One of the main concerns they had beef with was the over enrollment of AP classes at Alameda High which necessitated a culling of sorts to determine which kids would get those coveted AP slots and which would not.

For those that may have forgotten or this didn’t apply at your school AP classes lend three advantages to students (1) the more rigorous academics give students a taste of college coursework, (2) the ability to take the AP exam and — if they pass — some schools will accept these for college credit, and (3) grade bump. The grade bump thing is how you see kids with weighted grade averages above 4.0. The idea is that the coursework is so much more difficult than a non AP class that a student’s grade average should reflect that rigor.

So these parents were upset because at Alameda High it sounded like students were selected at random (if they had signed up for the class) to fill the overenrolled AP classes which meant that some students did not get the advantage of that class. They were asking for the District to come up with another way for overenrolled AP classes to be filled. I recall this also being an issue at Encinal last year with AP World History. There were only two AP World History classes being offered, more kids wanted in, some kids didn’t get in.

Recently I learned that to get into some electives at Encinal you have to have another teacher provide a recommendation for you to attest that you have strong writing skills. It seems like if were holding this standard for an elective, the very least we could do would be to have this basic hurdle for an AP class if we need some way to thin out the demand for AP classes.

So here’s the scenario apparently when it came time to sign up for text years classes this year’s freshmen (rising sophomores) were told that Encinal would no longer be offering an AP World History class. What would be offered instead would be an advisory period where students who wanted to take the AP test could attend and then be given the tools to work toward passing the AP test. There’s a complicated bit of miscommunication where kids were told that this was a District level decision but when it turned out the Alameda High would still be offering AP World History for 2023-24 that was no longer the messaging. The advisory class, which would be a lesser class than a full AP World History class, would not be the full rigorous AP class nor would it lend the grade bump that Alameda High kids would continue to get. If this is an issue of funding or finding a teacher to offer the same class at Encinal then absolutely the District should step in. But it does seem odd that Encinal was able to offer two AP World History classes for 2021-22, FOUR classes for 2023-23, but now wants to offer zero for 2023-24.

Arguably we should be offering as many AP classes to as many students that want to take the class but Encinal has decided on another way and, I’m hoping, that someone at the School District will see that the current decision of Encinal feels like a downgrade given that their decision is not a district mandate. While colleges will look at what your school has on offer to determine how rigorous your academic were given your options it is very hard to explain away that while your school did offer AP World History for the 2022-23 school year it TOTALLY makes sense why they stopped offering it for 2023-24.

If Encinal is somehow not able to offer this AP class then this should spur the district towards that coordinated bell schedule so that, perhaps, students from Encinal could be offered the AP option at Alameda High instead. In these hyper competitive times to get into the UC system where the average weighted GPA for admitted students for some schools is above 4.1, we’re doing a disservice to our Encinal students by kneecapping them against other students in the same district.