College Board Taps D303 for Honor

SOURCE: St. Charles School District 303

The College Board has selected St. Charles School District 303 for the fourth year in a row as one of 477 school districts in the United States and Canada named to the fourth annual Advanced Placement (AP®) Honor Roll, the district announced Wednesday.

According to the release, research shows that high school students who take AP courses not only earn college credit and decrease college costs, but they also are more successful in college than similar students who did not take an AP course. Students who took an AP course had higher college course grades, were more likely to graduate from college and more likely to graduate in only 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.

The AP Honor Roll is based on examination of three years of AP data: 2011, 2012, and 2013 data from all students who took AP Examinations in May of those years. Inclusion on the 4th Annual AP District Honor Roll is based on the following criteria:

• Examination of three years of AP data, from 2011 to 2013.

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

• Performance levels maintained or improved when comparing the percentage of students in 2013 scoring a 3 or higher on AP exams to those in 2011, or the school has already attained a performance level in which more than 70 percent of the AP students are scoring a 3 or higher on AP exams.

District 303 had an 18% increase in the number of students who took AP courses from 2009-10 to 2012-13 (from 920 to 1090) and a steady number above the AP Honor Roll threshold of 70 percent (from 71 percent to 72 percent) in the number of AP exams with a score of 3, 4 or 5 (commonly considered passing scores).