Monday, December 2, 2024
East Rockaway High School announced last month that 50 of its students had been named Advanced Placement Scholars after earning high test scores in classes with college-level curriculum in the 2023-24 school year.
ERHS is a relatively small school, with roughly 100 students per grade, and the number of AP Scholars was a record, by far.
“We’ve never had more than about 25 or so in a single year,” Principal Richard Schaffer said. “This shows that our students are not only participating in a large number of AP courses, but they’re also succeeding. Overall, it’s been a great achievement by our students.”
AP Classes are optional college-level classes in subjects ranging from history to math to science, in which students can earn college credits. The results of their final exams, with scores ranging from 0 to 5, determine whether students are recognized as AP Scholars, Scholars with Honor or Scholars with Distinction.
Last year, more than 110 ERHS students took more than 200 AP exams. Twelve earned the title AP Scholar with Honor, averaging a score of at least 3.25 on all of their exams and scoring 3 or higher on four or more exams.
Ten students earned the highest honor, AP Scholar with Distinction, by averaging at least 3.5 on all of their exams and scoring 3 or higher on five or more exams.
“We pride ourselves on being a small district in Nassau County,” John Madden, the director of school counseling, said. “We give the personal touch in trying to provide the best quality education for our students, and using our size to its advantage as opposed to a disadvantage.”
The growing ranks of AP Scholars reflects an increase in the number of students looking toward post-secondary education.
“Last year, our four-year college rate increased,” Madden said. “We went up from 66 percent to 72 percent. We also had a student attend Harvard University, and we had another student get a full ride … at New York University.”
“We believe in providing opportunities for all our students,” district Superintendent James DeTommaso said. “Research says that when we have a student who’s exposed to the curriculum in AP class or a college-level class, they have better success in post-secondary education.”
The district also encourages academic excellence before high school. Its Achievement Via Individual Determination program, known as AVID, makes extra support tools and resources available to middle school and high school students to begin preparing them for college.
“Several years ago, we shifted to a universal acceleration model so our students in eighth grade are taking high school classes,” the high school’s assistant principal, Bradley Krauz, explained. “Students that can see success in high school classes early on can build confidence.”
“We also run an AVID program,” Krauz added, “which is a nationally recognized program that encourages students to challenge themselves academically, and it also teaches them basic academic study skills so they can see success.”
“We prepare them to take upper-level classes,” Jennifer Isik, a 10th-grade AP Seminar teacher and AVID instructor, said. “We talk about college, and we teach them the skills that they’re going to need to be successful later on in their academic career.”
“My favorite part of teaching is connecting with the students, building relationships, learning about their interests and their personal stories,” Isik added, “and then finding ways that I can support them and their future.”
Isik teaches a seminar that focuses on researching real-world issues and examining potential solutions to them.
“It exposes them to the type of rigor that they’re going to experience in college,” she said of her students. “It also sets the bar high for what their capabilities are in academics, and it also shows them that they’re able to accomplish hard things.”
