Seymour Public School District has received national recognition this week as one of 433 school districts in the United States and Canada to be named to the 7th Annual Advanced Placement (AP) Honor Roll by the College Board.
The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. The AP District Honor Roll recognizes school districts for increasing AP access to students while simultaneously maintaining or increasing the percentage of students earning AP exam scores of 3 or higher.
Students who take AP courses have the opportunity to earn college credit which decreases college costs. They tend to be more successful in college than those students who do not take an AP course. Students who have taken at least one AP course had higher college course grades, and were more likely to graduate from college within four years.
To qualify for the AP Honor Roll, a district must work to broaden the pool of students taking Advanced Placement classes while also maintaining or improving the percentage of students earning scores of 3 or higher on AP exams.
To be included on the 7th Annual AP District Honor Roll an examination of three years of AP data, from 2014 to 2016, is done for the following criteria:
- Increased 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;
- Increased or maintained the percentage of exams taken by African American, Hispanic/Latino, and American Indian/Alaska Native students who scored 3+ on at least one AP Exam; and
- Improved performance levels when comparing the percentage of students in 2016 scoring a 3 or higher to those in 2014, 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.
Seymour High School Principal James Freund said “I am very proud of the faculty and students who have supported and participated in the AP Program over the last several years. To be nationally recognized is an honor for the Seymour Community.”
