The San Benito High School Board of Trustees gathered Sept 6 to discuss Advanced Placement and SAT test scores for the 2015-2016 school year, when the school reported the highest number of students taking the AP exam in its history.
Director of Educational Services Cindi Krokower gave the board an annual update on student test scores. The AP exam is given to those enrolled in those courses throughout the school year. Taking an AP class in high school allows colleges to see if that a student is ready for undergraduate-level courses. Upon earning a passing score on the exam, a student can earn college credit, advanced placement or both.
There were 507 SBHS students enrolled in AP courses for the 2015-2016 school year, up 80 from the previous year. “That’s the highest number we’ve had yet,” said Krokower.
“935 tests were taken, which puts us at a 90 percent of possible tests taken. We are trying to get that to 100 percent, but that is still very good,” she said. “I think we’re doing an excellent job with hitting those goals that we have in terms of encouraging students to take AP courses and we’re encouraging and supporting them to take the tests.”
Females continued to represent of the majority of overall AP course enrollment, with 62 percent while males were 38 percent of the students in those classes.
SBHS AP students surpassed state averages in AP biology (68 percent vs. 58 percent), AP US history (70 percent vs. 51 percent), AP economics micro (80 percent vs. 65 percent), AP economics macro (70 percent vs. 56 percent, AP Spanish (100 percent vs. 92 percent), Spanish 2SH (98 percent vs. 92 percent), AP Spanish Lit (80 percent vs. 69 percent), AP studio art (100 percent vs. 82 percent), and AP European history (56 percent vs. 44 percent).
European history, which was in its first year at SBHS, scored “12 percent above the state average and that’s to be celebrated,” said Krokower.
“That’s incredible,” said Superintendent John Perales.
“It’s absolutely incredible,” seconded Krokower. “It’s very impressive. Those are 10th-graders taking their first AP course.”
“I think I have to eat my words here a little bit,” said Perales. “I’ve always been against offering this class because it literally is from the beginning of time until now and because it covered the entire year, I just don’t think we could do that justice and I stand corrected.”
Trustee Evelyn Muro said, “overall, it still looks like they’re struggling in math.”
AP Calculus AB scored 40 percent vs. a state passage rate of 69 percent and AP Calculus BC scored 68 percent vs. 82 percent on a state average scale.
AP Psychology fell below state averages with a 33 percent passage rate compared to to 64 percent passing it statewide.
Board members said they want to keep encouraging students to enroll in AP courses and get more students to take the year-end exams, which are optional.
“I hope live to see the day that we have 100 percent of our kids testing,” said Krokower.
Principal Adrian Ramirez updated the board on the SAT exam for the 2015-2016 school year.
Created by the College Board, the SAT is used by colleges and universities as an entrance exam to determine admissions decisions.The SAT exam is offered every year in October, November, December, January, March, May and June.
“As of March 2016, College Board has come out with a new format that is intended to be more aligned with what you see within our updated curriculum standards and Common Core,” said Ramirez.
Students are required to take two SAT sections: Math, Evidence-Based Reading and Writing, plus an optional essay. The essay results are reported separately. Students are allotted three hours and 50 minutes to take the exam.
“What you can see overall between 2013 and 2015 is that we’ve definitely improved on our performance,” said Ramirez. “The number of students has remained stable, but not only that, our participation rate in terms our percentage of our population is right there with the national average.”
Ramirez said the number of students taking SAT tests during the October test date has remained stable over the past three years.
Muro said, “Does that mean one of the things that we talked about is tracking the number of students that are accessing four-year colleges or universities? This is kind of the gatekeeper for that, right? So, that means it’s been pretty much stable. You haven’t seen an increase or decrease; it been pretty much flat.”
“One of the goals is to get more kids taking this test,” said Ramirez. “What we see is more kids taking it at the last minute and that’s not a good thing depending on how you look at it. A lot of students feel more comfortable taking it at the end of the year because they’ve almost gone through a full school year of going through course work. especially math and English.”
To get more students to take the exam, freshmen will be taking the PSAT 9 — a practice test — a step above last year’s approach of having the sophomore class take the PSAT.
“If we don’t increase the overall numbers of students taking the SAT, we’re not going to see an increase of students who access four-year colleges and universities,” said Muro.
“They go hand-in-hand,” said Ramirez.
The next board meeting will be Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 7 p.m. The board will discuss the graduation ceremony report and the superintendent’s goals for the upcoming school year.