Watchung Hills High Honored for Advanced Placement Increases

Watchung Hills Regional High School District is one of 477 school districts in the United States and Canada being honored by the College Board with placement on the fourth annual Advanced Placing District Honor Roll, according to information from the high school district.

The honor is granted for increasing access to AP® course work, that is, increasing the number of students taking the test, while at the same time maintaining or increasing the percentage of students earning scores of 3 or higher on AP Exams. 

Reaching those goals indicates that the district is successfully identifying motivated, academically prepared students who are likely to benefit from rigorous Advanced Placement course work that can lead to college credits.

Since 2011, WHRHS has increased the number of students participating in AP by 15 percent, while also improving the number of students earning AP Exam scores of 3 or higher by 117, according to the high school.

In 2013, more than 3,300 colleges and universities around the world received AP scores for college credit, advanced placement and/or consideration in the admission process, with many colleges and universities in the United States offering credit in one or more subjects for qualifying AP scores.

Data from 2013 show that among African American, Hispanic, and Native American students with a high degree of readiness for Advanced Placement, only about half of students are participating because their schools do not always offer the AP course for which they have potential. Watchung Hills is committed to expanding the availability of AP courses among prepared and motivated students of all backgrounds.

“We applaud the extraordinary efforts of the devoted teachers and administrators in this district who are offering more students the opportunity to engage in rigorous college-level course work,” Trevor Packer, the College Board’s senior vice president of AP and Instruction was quoted as saying in a release from Watchung Hills High School.  “These outcomes are a powerful testament to educators’ belief that a more diverse population of students is ready for the sort of rigor that will prepare them for success in college.”

Helping more students learn at a higher level and earn higher AP scores is an objective of all members of the AP community, from AP teachers to district and school administrators to college professors. Many districts are experimenting with a variety of initiatives and strategies to do so, the release said.

Inclusion on the 4th Annual AP District Honor Roll is based on the examination of three years of AP data, from 2011 to 2013, for the following criteria.  Districts must:

_ Increase participation/access to AP by at least 4 percent in large districts, at least 6 percent in medium districts, and at least 11 percent in small districts;

— Increase or maintain the percentage of exams taken by African American, Hispanic/Latino, and American Indian/Alaska Native students, and,

— Improve performance levels when comparing the percentage of students in 2013 scoring a 3 or higher to those in 2011, unless the district has already attained a performance level at which more than 70 percent of its AP students are scoring a 3 or higher.