“Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. I made the honor roll.”
That’s exciting enough when you’re a student in the public schools. However, if you ARE a publice school, or in this case a district – the stakes are much higher. Now you have to make the AP Honor Roll, held by the College Board.
The Harlingen school district has just learned it’s made the cut for the College Board’s 6th Annual AP Honor Roll, one of 425 districts across the country to do so.
The AP Honor Roll is issued by the College Board, a not-for-profit organization which connects students to college success and opportunity. The AP Honor Roll gauges how well school districts are encouraging students to take AP courses.
School districts had to meet three criteria over a three-year period.
They had to show increased participation/access to AP courses by at least 4 percent in large districts. Medium-sized districts had to show a 6 percent increase, and small districts had to show an 11 percent increase.
The Harlingen school district far surpassed the requirement for a 4 percent increase, said Alicia Noyola, chief academic offi-cer.
“We actually had an 8 percent increase,” she said.
The second requirement related to the participation of different ethnic groups in AP courses. Specificially, districts had to show an increase in the number of African American, Hispanic/Latino, or American Indian/Alaska Natives taking AP courses.
If not an increase, then the district must at least show it has maintained its percentage of these students taking AP exams.
Because of the area’s large Hispanic population, this requirement was met easily.
Third, districts had to show more students were scoring at least a 3 on their AP exams.
The Honor Roll also requires an increase in the number of students scoring a 3 or higher. On this point, Noyola sounded almost jubilant.
“We had an 18 percent increase in the number of students who scored 3 or better,” she said.
