Schools

Pasco Only Bay Area District Named to AP Honor Roll

Only three other counties in the state earned recognition from the College Board.

When it comes to scoring on Advanced Placement exams, Pasco County students are among the best of the best.

That’s according to the College Board’s 5th Annual Advanced Placement District Honor Roll. The board oversees Advanced Placement, or AP, courses in school districts across the county and in Canada.

The honor roll includes 547 districts that are being honored for “increasing access to AP course work while simultaneously maintaining or increasing the percentage of students earning scores of 3 or higher on AP exams,” according to its website. “Reaching these goals indicates that these districts are successfully identifying motivated, academically prepared students who are likely to benefit from rigorous AP course work.”

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Pasco’s percentage of students scoring a passing grade of 3 or higher on AP exams increased by almost 18 percent with a 113 percent increase for Mexican American students, the district noted in a media release. There was also an 81.3 percent increase for American Indian students and almost a 20 percent increase for African American students.

“Those performance increases occurred while overall participation in AP courses increased by nearly 6 percent overall, with a 13 percent increase in Mexican American student participation, a 19 percent increase in American Indian student participation, a 10 percent increase in African American student participation, and a 3 percent increase in overall Hispanic participation,” the district’s media release stated.

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Other public school districts in Florida that made the list were Lake County, Miami-Dade and Orange County. The Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee and the Diocese of St. Petersburg’s education office also made the honor roll.

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