Increase Equity and Access
Providing Advanced Learning Opportunities for Students of All Abilities
Program: AP
Description: This AP District of the Year winner implemented policies that broadened access to AP and delivered positive results for students.
How: Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District in New York was honored as the 2023 AP Medium District of the Year for its outstanding efforts to broaden access to Advanced Placement® and deliver positive outcomes for students.
To achieve these results, the district used methods of instruction that allowed a wider range of students to succeed in AP.
A section of its AP English Language and Composition course is cotaught by special education and general education teachers. Seniors are encouraged to enroll if they haven’t previously taken the course or AP Seminar. Students are encouraged to attend a support period to help them outside the classroom if necessary.
The AP Capstone™ program, which includes AP Seminar and AP Research, is also cotaught. Pairing English and Social Studies teachers, along with the help of media specialists, has reduced the student-to-teacher ratio to 1:12. Students benefit from having more individualized support from their teachers, and their chances of success increase.
The impact of the district’s effort can be seen in the data: 70% of students graduating from Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District have taken at least one AP course.
"We’re committed to access and participation in education and ensuring that a diverse range of students can benefit from and succeed in challenging academic programs. We really believe in the research that college and career access is improved when students are involved in high-level work, and the AP curriculum is as good as it gets.” ─Scott Bersin, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, Bellmore-Merrick CHSD, NY
Shared by: Bellmore-Merrick CHSD, NY
Watch this video to learn more about how Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District expanded access to AP.
English Sequence Options for AP Seminar Promotes Equity
Program: AP
Description: This school adopted AP Seminar as a core English course and replaced their Honors courses with Pre-AP English 1 to help students build the skills they’d need to succeed.
How: "We knew that adding AP Seminar to our English sequence would engage more students because of its project-based assessments and skills-based framework. We also knew that introducing Pre-AP would lead to stronger outcomes for our students who needed more support. Over time in our English department, our narrative became what skills do we need to develop here versus how many books will we get through this year. We believe that AP Seminar was the foundational course for our English sequence.” ─Tanya Bernier, Dean of English Language Arts, B.M.C. Durfee High School, MA
Shared by: B.M.C. Durfee High School, MA
Increasing College Enrollment
Programs: SAT, AP
Description: Administrators leverage data from the SAT Suite of Assessments to help inform program- and classroom-specific changes.
How: "We use AP, SAT, and PSAT-related assessments to help guide our decision making at a macro and micro level. This allows for program- and classroom-specific changes based on data. We've had a 95% increase in AP Exams taken and a 94% increase in the number of students taking AP courses in the last 2 years. Since we started to analyze the data related to the SAT Suite of Assessments, we increased the number of our graduates attending college by 15 percentage points and went from 0 to 5 students participating in the National Merit® Scholar Program. The SAT Suite is clearly having a positive impact." —Dr. Mark Smithberger, Principal, Berea City School District, OH
Shared by: Berea City School District, OH
Revealing Student Success and Potential
Program: SAT, AP
Description: To create personalized pathways for students, the district uses data from the SAT Suite of Assessments and AP to understand students’ academic strengths.
How: "The AP, SAT, and PSAT-related assessments are really avenues to reveal success that students have experienced so far, and an avenue to reveal potential. These are tremendously useful tools in the K−12 space because of our ability to reveal success compared against the national pool of test takers who have a proclivity to go to some kind of postsecondary learning. The opportunity to connect a student with a pathway that they otherwise wouldn't have experienced because they had success on an assessment or an opportunity to target and pinpoint some challenges previously unidentified is absolutely critical to the work that we do." —Thomas Taylor, Superintendent, Stafford County Public Schools, VA
Watch the full video to learn how Thomas’ district uses data from the SAT Suite and the AP Program to connect students with the pathway that’s best for them.
Shared by: Stafford County Public Schools, VA