Roseville High School assistant principals Stephanie Malia and Jason Wilson met with the two AP U.S. Government and Politics classes last Wednesday in response to student complaints about not receiving weighted credit in the second quarter. Students said they were unaware that they enrolled in the unweighted social science elective Law and Justice for the second quarter.

Prior to the 2015-16 school year, the master schedule coupled one weighted quarter of AP Gov with one unweighted quarter of CP Economics to satisfy both the government and economics graduation requirements.

For AP Gov students during the 2015-16 school year, admin broke out the economics requirement into one quarter of AP Microeconomics and one quarter of AP Macroeconomics. To replace the nine weeks that were previously CP Econ, students who opted for AP Gov had to enroll in two weighted quarters of the course rather than one.

However, AP Gov had not received district-level approval as a two-quarter, 10-credit weighted course at the time. To comply with district policy, admin swapped in second-quarter AP Gov for Law and Justice during the fall of 2015-16. Law and Justice carried into this school year.

AP Gov teacher Dana Dooley said that the students deserve weighted credit due to the rigor of the work they doing in the second quarter.

“If we are doing AP Government work the whole time, we shouldn’t be calling it AP Government and not Law and Justice and give credit that students deserve,” Dooley said.

According to RHS assistant principal Stephanie Malia, the process for changing AP Government credits is a long one and requires approval from principals, school site councils, the district-level CILT and the school board.

“It really has to start with the teachers who teach the course and [them] being on board, and being on the same page, and coming up with a proposal or rationale for the change,” Malia said. “It doesn’t change in one site, it changes for the whole district.”

According to Dooley, the proposal to move AP Gov to cover 10 credits began before this school year.

“Myself and admin were working under the premise that we could have both quarter one and quarter two as a AP credit because you are doing AP Gov work,” Dooley said. “However, we were hitting resistance at that point to get it approved at the district level, because when it was tried elsewhere in the district, it was not approved by College Board or the UC system.”

Seniors Alexis Clouser and Morgan Jamison started a petition to raise awareness of student concerns at the district level.

“We formed a petition with the signatures of AP Government students, even other possibly incoming AP government students to gain support,” Clouser said. “It’s not a slip-up of communication from the administration, but it’s a huge failure on their part.”

Jamison is disappointed that the second quarter is not weighted.

“I’m really frustrated. I enjoy the class, but I’m not getting credit for the second half,” Jamison said. “It’s like being paid 20 hours when you worked 40 hours, so I’m kind of being cheated and let down.”

According to Malia, AP government has always been five credits and she understands the frustration of students.

“AP Government has always been five credits and not saying that it should always be and I know the students are not happy,” Malia said. “I understand that acquity of the content takes you the full 18 weeks then equitably it should be worth the same amount of credits.”

Malia believes that the AP credit process is still at the teacher level.

“As far as I know, the AP gov credit process is still at the teacher level, where the teacher’s are having the conversations about it,” Malia said. “There has been nothing that has gone up the chain yet.”

However, Dooley believes that getting AP government credits approved is going to benefit everyone as a whole.

“When it was tried elsewhere, it wasn’t approved by UC or by College Board, but now they don’t have a problem,” Dooley said. “So we are hoping that by showing other schools that that’s the case and that all our students throughout the district are going to benefit from having AP Government count for the 2 full terms, then it’s going to be something that benefits our whole district.”

According to Malia, admin values student voice and opinion on campus.

“I think it’s important for students, especially for seniors, to have a voice and to understand the process and the most effective way of going about making change,” Malia said. “In this case it’s probably the student voice and the reasons it will be important for anybody hearing this in the process, such as principal, teachers and district administration.”

Even though Clouser was aware of the unweighted second quarter, but expected better communication between the admin and students.

“I think it was a surprise because of the huge failure to communicate this with students and it feels like we are being lied to and being let down,” Clouser said. “The best way I can put it is that they failed to let us know this information because I’m assuming that all of us went into this knowing or believing that we were gonna receive the AP credit for the whole semester.”

Jamison is also trying to communicate with other AP students in the district about the unweighted quarter.

“I spoke to my counselor and I’m also connecting with the AP students in other schools in the district to see if they are going through the same problem and how they can help us,” Jamison said.

Malia hopes that students are enrolling in the AP class for the right reasons.

“The students should also understand this is not just for the grade bump but for the amount of work they put in and the time and not weighing against what you are earning,” Malia said.

Malia believes that if the movement is really necessary and a priority to the district, then it will happen.

“In order to make the change it has to be important to every student in the district and not just for a Roseville High School student,” Malia said. “And while the grassroot effort may begin here, we have to think is it in the best interest of all students.”