Batavia School District looks at adding more AP courses

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BATAVIA – Batavia High School students in the next three years could see more Advanced Placement courses to choose from.

Batavia School Board members have started looking at the cost of adding more Advanced Placement courses.

The AP program allows students to participate in a college level course and possibly earn college credit while still in high school.

The high school currently offers eight Advanced Placement sections, including AP courses in English and world literature, American government and calculus.

The proposal would turn several honor classes into pre-AP courses along with adding new AP courses.

For example, the American literature honors course would become the pre-AP literature and composition course in the 2009-2010 school year.

Another AP calculus course also would be added. This course would be a full-year program. The current program is half a year.

The estimated cost in training and staff for both courses is $12,200, said Jan Wright, the district’s associate superintendent for teaching and learning.

“The only way an AP class can be scheduled without any financial implications is to eliminate one section of a different class for each new section offered,” Wright said.

The proposal also calls for other changes in the next two years, such as making the Biology I honors course a pre-AP biology course, and adding AP U.S. history, biology and environmental science courses.

Wright said it will be necessary to create minimum enrollment requirements for the courses.

“For these AP classes to be run as efficiently as possible, class size should be set at 32, which is the guideline used for most of the high school classes,” she said.

She said the school could schedule 192 students into six or eight sections, depending on the class size guidelines.

School board member Jack Hinterlong was in favor of doing away with honors courses.

“It doesn’t do anything as far as getting college credit,” Hinterlong said.

“You either have AP or regular ed courses.”

School board member Kristin Behmer said she would like to hear from students on how they feel about the proposal.

“I would like more information from students on their perception of this,” Behmer said.

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