SANDPOINT — The Lake Pend Oreille School District is one of 373 school districts in the United States and Canada honored by the College Board with placement on the 9th Annual AP District Honor Roll.

To be included on the honor roll, high schools had to increase the number of students participating in Advanced Placement, while also increasing or maintaining the percentage of students earning AP Exam scores of 3 or higher since 2016.

Sandpoint High School Principal Tom Albertson said SHS currently offers 11 AP courses, and last year, 163 students enrolled in those courses took 354 AP exams. In addition, 72 percent of those 354 exams had a score of 3 or higher on the 5-point scale.

“So that was one of the indicators of why we are on the AP honor roll for College Board, is that success rate,” Albertson said. “I think it is the dedication of the teaching staff and the hard work of the students challenging themselves.”

The staff, he said, have to submit a syllabus to the College Board to qualify, and have that audited, he said, as well as attend summer trainings. Two of the teachers, Mary Bird and Wendy Auld, he said, participate nationally as AP Readers, to evaluate and score AP students’ free responses, ensuring that high school students receive AP grades that accurately reflect college-level achievement in a specified discipline.

SHS has offered AP courses for many years, Albertson said, really picking up in the last 15 to 18 years. This was the first time in the nine years since the College Board started the AP District Honor Roll that SHS has met all the criteria for the honor. Moscow High School was the only other Idaho school to make the list, he said.

“It is something for the community to be proud of,” Albertson said. “It is the community support that allows us to provide these opportunities for students.”

LPOSD Superintendent Shawn Woodward said he is “extremely proud” of the work being done by the high school staff in this area as well.

“Not only are students demonstrating higher levels of learning in Advanced Placement courses, we are also increasing the number of students taking these upper level courses,” Woodward said. “There are mechanisms in place to ensure all students have access to these courses if they have the interest and motivation.”

According to a statement from the college board, national data from 2018 shows that among American Indian/Alaska Native, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander students with a high degree of readiness for AP, only about half are participating. The first step to getting more of these students to participate is to give them access, College Board officials said in the statement.

“Success in Advanced Placement is a combination of students’ own motivation and the opportunities educators provide for them,” said Trevor Packer, senior vice president of AP and Instruction at the College Board. “I’m inspired by the teachers and administrators in this district who have worked to clear a path for more students of all backgrounds to earn college credit during high school.”

Helping more students learn at a higher level and earn higher AP scores is an objective of all members of the AP community, from AP teachers to district and school administrators to college professors, according to the statement. Many districts are experimenting with initiatives and strategies to see how they can expand access and improve student performance at the same time.

In 2018, more than 4,000 colleges and universities around the world received AP scores for college credit, advanced placement or both, and/or consideration in the admissions process. Inclusion in the 9th Annual AP District Honor Roll is based on a review of three years of AP data, from 2016 to 2018, across 38 AP Exams, including world language and culture. The following criteria were used.

Districts must:

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

- Increase or maintain the percentage of American Indian/Alaska Native, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander students taking exams and scoring 3 or higher on at least one AP Exam.

- Improve or maintain performance levels when comparing the 2018 percentage of students scoring a 3 or higher to the 2016 percentage, unless the district has already attained a performance level at which more than 70 percent of its AP students earn a 3 or higher.

The complete 9th Annual AP District Honor Roll can be found at bit.ly/2Py9mRz.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.