Oceanside High School is honored for AP programs

Oceanside High School was recognized in November for student success in the Advanced Placement program while broadening access to AP courses. The high school was named to the College Board’s AP School Honor Roll, earning Silver distinction.

Schools can earn Honor Roll recognition, which was new in 2023, based on criteria that reflect a commitment to fostering a college-bound culture, providing opportunities for students to earn college credit, and maximizing college preparedness.

Nearly 500 Oceanside High students took at least one AP exam this spring, and 73 percent had a score of 3 or higher on at least one of the exams, which use a 5-point grading scale. Students at the high school took a total of 985 exams in 30 AP categories.

“We do a really good job communicating with families about the importance of pushing their children into meeting these higher expectations — trying to push students to challenge themselves and take these academically rigorous courses,” Joelle Hennessy, the school’s associate principal and AP exam coordinator, said. “To get themselves college- and career-ready and pursue their passions. AP courses are very content-specific, so if a student has a passion for a particular field, we do offer an AP course pretty much in almost every field. Oceanside High School offers more than 30 AP courses across the curriculum, in literature, languages, math and science, social studies, and the arts.

“We do challenge students to pursue those fields even before they leave our high school hallways,” Hennessy added, “and so we do a good job of really informing our community, our parents or students about those opportunities. I think we have a really amazing staff and school counseling program and counselors are super supportive. Our teachers are super supportive. They really get our students ready for these courses.”

Instructors who teach AP courses are certified in the subject matter over the summer. Before becoming an administrator in Oceanside, Hennessy was an AP biology teacher in the Herricks School District. She discussed what goes into teaching AP courses.

“I was a biology major in college,” she said, “so I had to reintroduce myself to that content to be able to be ready and prepared for my students, for any questions they may have, because as a teacher, you always need to kind of be one step ahead. I think although they can be intimidating, I think students feel that they have the support in place to get them through these academic courses. So they feel prepared and ready to take on that challenge.

AP courses have become the standard of an academically rigorous curriculum, and because the courses can be stressful, teachers must find a balance between meeting students’ academic needs and managing that stress.

“You need to make sure you’re well versed in the content and immersed in the most up-to-date research, but also that you’re exposing the students to the skills that they need to prepare for these exams,” Hennessy said. “Everything’s changing now, with the technology the kids are using, to the content the kids are exposed to, and you have to make sure that they have an enriched experience in the classroom, going beyond the basic minimum requirements.”