BY ASHLEY BERTHOLF
AND NILAB HABIB
[email protected]

To be totally honest, our class as a whole is pretty upset with everything surrounding the situation regarding Advanced Placement credits in the AP Government and Economics block.

Starting this school year, the seniors that opted into taking AP Government and AP Economics were under the impression we would receive 20 AP credits between the two classes, 10 given to AP government and 10 given to AP economics. Administration was understandably trying to fix the situation with a cramped and cluttered economics class and incomplete semester of AP government.

As of two weeks ago, our class was informed that this was not what would happen. Administration explained that they had offered the class to students before they received district approval in doing so. Student reaction, from a personal standpoint, was not very positive. We were all angry at the school, the School Board and we were just rightfully confused.

There is a lot to be upset about. Not only did it take basically a whole semester for the students affected to be informed but there seemed to be no sense of urgency from our administration in keeping us updated with the situation.

As seniors in high school, most of us have submitted our college applications. This change will prove to be extremely problematic to all of us because when applying to colleges you have to explicitly list your senior year course schedule. If there are any discrepancies between your final transcript and your reported class schedule, your application can be subject to dismissal. Now that our transcripts will show a total of four classes rather than the intended two, and one of them losing AP credit, there is a huge issue for students that have already submitted.This is a major hassle for the students affected and their respective counselors in correcting the errors. Now the responsibility of contacting our prospective college’s office of admissions to notify of them of the change will fall solely on us students.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the mix up is the fact that now we are all unintentionally enrolled in a CP class. Anyone enrolled in an AP class versus a CP class can agree on the significant difference in workload. Although we have been assessed and challenged in a rigorous and time consuming course, we won’t be getting the promised credit for all the hard work we have put in, or at least for half of it.

Some of the students are angry at our own administration for the mix-up, although there are some hard feelings, all the blame cannot go single handedly to our administration. In fact, a lot of effort was exhibited in them trying to remedy the problem and work out a solution for our credit even though their efforts were futile in the end. Yes, administration did jump into this a little too quickly and may have not thought it through thoroughly, but until recently, it wasn’t a problem.

Many students enrolled in these courses are extremely frustrated and created a petition to try to incite change. Originating in Dana Dooley’s second period, the purpose of the petition is to draw attention to the issue at hand from the school and the School Board and allow students to receive all 10 AP credits. This is something we are very passionate about and taking what we learned in AP Government, we hope to legally and peacefully rally to induce a change in the school and the district.

Although our class was ultimately stripped of its AP title, we still received an entire semester’s worth of an AP-level education in government. Having this time to immerse ourselves in one subject really helped us understand the coursework in a more timely fashion and we were able to focus more detailedly on certain topics because there was no pressure to push in a mini lesson of economics and take away valuable AP Government material. At the very least, our class can serve as a testament to the “proposed” restructure and help push the school board to approve the class for later years.