Wandering Spirit and the Summit Calls

Castles Made of Sand

During the 2006 to 2007 school year, in addition to serving as the school’s  Curriculum Director and leading the development of our STEAM program, I began serving as the school’s Advanced Placement (AP) Coordinator. A priority goal of mine was to ensure our AP program better represented our diverse student body, was more inclusive, and expanded while welcoming and better supporting students of every background.

An issue that was apparent and easily recognizable to anyone who visited our school was that an observer could tell which classrooms were offering AP classes by simply walking past and looking at the students’ faces. Lane Tech was, and still is, an extremely diverse school. It was also diverse when I attended years earlier as a student. The majority of the students, and the friends I primarily made when I was a student, were first generation learners or immigrants, and represented a variety of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

When I was attending Lane Tech as a student, the majority of students enrolled in AP were white and Asian. When I began leading as the school’s AP Coordinator during the 2006 to 2007 school year, the school remained diverse but the disproportionate overrepresentation of specific student subgroups in AP remained unchanged.

Lane Tech had approximately 4,500 students but there were just hundreds of students enrolled in Advanced Placement courses. The students who were participating were still overrepresented by white and Asian student subgroups. In addition, our pass rate was only 46 percent while little more than 10 percent of the student body was participating in AP course offerings. I began an aggressive campaign to address equity, access, and growth via collaborative efforts with staff, students, and through grant writing to support expanding our program further. My goal was to develop a welcoming, equitable, and supportive program that would last far into the future.

Dazed and Confused

A major hurdle was working with department chairs to remove barriers for enrolling students, as each department had created independent obstacles (they were called policies) and requirements for students to be considered or permitted to sign up to enroll in an AP course. These impediments included a variety of hurdles, such as students needing to sign-up but then needing to later write a summer essay and provide additional artifacts to receive final approval for enrollment. In another case, one of my teachers had decided to only allow heritage speakers to enroll in an AP world language course, thereby greatly impeding access but ensuring top scores of 4s and 5s (AP exam results are scored/rated 1-5) on the end-of-year AP exam. 

Other deterrents included a variety of requirements, including GPAs above a certain threshold (for example, 3.5 and higher), reduced numbers of students allowed seats in a classroom, and other prerequisite electives and/or coursework required before being authorized to enroll in an AP course. As one can imagine, an unintended message was delivered to the majority of students that communicated, “You are not welcome,” which resulted in low student interest levels. While I wanted to believe the message was unintended, it was sometimes difficult to believe the intent was not recognized.

Additionally, even after enrolling, a number of students would later be informed of the need to drop an AP course and choose another non-AP course in late summer (right before the new school year began) because of the essay requirement(s) for select departments. This was, of course, creating counseling and programmatic nightmares with the onset of each new school year.

The Flipped Learner Paradigm

In an effort to develop a data-informed understanding of student and teacher perceptions, I initiated a variety of input opportunities for gathering thoughts and devising solutions and strategies. I created a student advisory board to provide perspective as well as administered a Needs Analysis for staff regarding our AP program.

Results indicated students possessed a genuine interest in AP but perceived the program as exclusionary. In addition, the school was approximately 45% Hispanic but only heritage speakers were being admitted to enroll in Spanish literature unless they first successfully completed Spanish language, which was also limited to heritage speakers. As a result of these barriers, there were barely enough eligible students to fill one section of Spanish literature (28 students) even though there were over two thousand Hispanic students enrolled in the school. The chances of a Hispanic student enrolling in AP Spanish language was only 1.4 percent. The chances of a non-heritage speaker being enrolled in AP Spanish language and literature was next to zero. 

As a staff, we learned from the Needs Analysis there was a significant number of staff who wanted to teach AP, but because course sections were few, opportunities were limited and perceived as guarded. We also learned many teachers did not speak up publicly as a result and state a desire to teach AP. Teachers perceived AP was only for certain teachers to teach, as the barriers resulted in a limited number of seats and sections available, and therefore, new teachers were primarily added when a teacher left, not because sections were increasing. Apparently, the unintended message that “You are not welcome” extended to a considerable number of staff. Our Needs Analysis data concluded many of the issues present were professionally created, contributing factors with respect to the program not growing in the most healthy, desirable manner.

Before becoming an assistant principal, I had provided citywide professional learning for high school AP teachers across the district on access and equity for Advanced Placement. While later serving as an assistant principal, I used the professional planning exercises, approaches, and best practices I earlier utilized as a presenter with teachers at Lane Tech. Those professional planning exercises provided perspective for removing barriers and creating a collaborative learning environment to cultivate our program (practice what you preach!). The goal was to reflect on data and perceptions gathered/learned, address department policies, and develop the AP program as a robust student-centered endeavor. The goal was to work as one Advanced Placement team.

From Stumbling Blocks to Stepping Stones

In addition to barriers, I worked with our counseling department and programmer and noted that students required additional guidance in choosing courses. Students were sometimes loading up on courses that were extremely challenging (for example, physics, calculus, and statistics) and because the courses were all being taken at the same time they were contributing to stress, anxiety, and depression. Overwhelmed students often needed to drop courses midyear, which was contrary to our goals for providing a nurturing learning environment.

We coordinated efforts to actively utilize AP Potential data, provide communications home in languages other than English, and to better inform students of recommended courses for consideration when enrolling in classes. Our AP recruitment efforts were proactively customized to make each individual student aware of his or her PSAT AP Potential data or course selection. Students were counseled with respect to individual AP courses a student would likely excel if he or she were to enroll, as well as balancing AP course loads with other curricular offerings and extracurricular activities. The recruitment and counseling efforts were individualized and welcoming to every student in the school. Even though it was a very large school, with potential for growing into a very large program, we fully embraced and employed personalized learning predicated upon social, emotional supports. Every student was included. No student was excluded. 

Shake Your Foundations

I also created what I termed the “AP Colloquium” by working with teachers to learn which types of courses fit nicely together when enrolling in multiple AP classes. The AP Colloquium also included increased counseling supports and annual AP Fairs for students to learn more about Advanced Placement course offerings. For example, students taking statistics and looking to enroll in additional courses were encouraged to take psychology. Students taking French were encouraged to consider European history. Students who desired to enroll in multiple AP courses while taking European history were paired with biology and literature. While there were many combinations of courses that shared common curricular relations (and possible interdisciplinary opportunities), the goal was to provide proactive recommendations for educating choice.

Essentially, we created a list of courses that lent themselves nicely to cross-curricular collaboration for skills development, interrelated critical-thinking and analytical skills across the curriculum, and embracing discussion and debate with peers via interdisciplinary course planning. The result was increased collaboration among staff and enhanced student social and emotional supports through courses teachers were openly sharing and aware of one another’s curricular long plans. 

As a result of our efforts, we were able to increase enrollment from just several hundred students in 2006 with a pass rate of only 46% to administering 1,946 exams with a pass rate of 66% by 2010. By 2014, our pass rate averaged 71 percent. By 2015-2016 we were administering well over 5,000 exams with fluctuations with respect to aggregate scores but student performance remained consistent. As our participation rates increased, so did student access and equity for participation. 

In concert, these efforts resulted in more and more students of diverse backgrounds enrolling in Advanced Placement. Our growth resulted in us creating the largest advanced placement in the state and nation in less than ten years. We experienced a 700 percent increase in the growth of our AP program, all the while increasing student cognitive and social-emotional success. I believe this is noteworthy because when we began this work there were staff who believed our success rates were going to plummet, which is the opposite of what occurred. Conversely, and most importantly, there were many, many staff who believed in our efforts to increase access and increase performance, and they were the heart and soul of the program’s success. As an instructional leader, I developed and gained firsthand knowledge with respect to working smarter, capitalizing on the strengths of a team, and the value of leveraging human capital by surrounding myself with asset-centered individuals. Consequently, I learned the importance of navigating the efforts of deficit-centered individuals by remaining driven, focused, positive, and exerting the least amount of my time and energy on defeatists, which naturally mitigated cynical voices.

Stresses Within Itself

We continued employing professional learning via grant writing and utilizing AP Potential data to actively seek and recruit all learners to participate in college coursework while still in high school. We also began offering every AP course available through the College Board AP Program. Our teachers further developed expertise in their content area and utilized professional learning to ensure students were provided with all of the resources necessary to succeed in the classroom.

We created improved programs of sequence to provide specific courses at each grade level for student participation (for example, human geography for freshman) and removed barriers to enrollment. As a result, our AP growth facilitated increased, diverse student enrollment and performance. These foundational efforts resulted in developing an incredibly strong, enduring Advanced Placement program for all students to feel welcomed and succeed for many years to come.

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Jumpin’ Jack Flash

Little did I know that what began during the 2006-2007 school year would continue for many, many years (almost logarithmically) and result in us creating the largest Advanced Placement program in the state and nation. By 2015, our program was also accessible to every student. No longer could someone walk by a classroom and say, “That must be AP.” Students of every racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic background were immersed in our AP program and provided challenging college coursework while still enrolled in a supportive, secondary education environment.

Beginning with the 2014-2015 school year, Lane Tech was selected as one of just one hundred schools in the entire world to offer the new AP Capstone program through the College Board. Beginning with the 2014-2015 school year, students who completed required coursework for the AP Capstone program would receive the AP Capstone Diploma. The AP Capstone Diploma designation would also appear on a student’s transcript. This was an incredible achievement for our work and opportunity for our students. 

The AP Capstone Diploma was developed in collaboration with the Association of American Colleges and Universities, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Common Core State Standards Initiative, and the Council of Writing Program Administrators. Our inclusive and expansive efforts led to the AP Capstone Diploma being awarded by the College Board to our students at Lane Tech College Prep. I was extremely happy and proud. 

Our efforts resulted in the AP Capstone Diploma being open to every student of every background, and not just the predictive student subgroups of past decades beginning with the inception of AP at Lane Tech. This would not have been the case had we not begun our work to ensure all student subgroups were provided opportunities to participate and enroll in Advanced Placement coursework.

The opportunity for students of every background to earn the AP Capstone Diploma would be extremely beneficial for college admittance and future academic goals for all learners. The AP Capstone Diploma afforded our diverse student body opportunities provided to few schools across the nation and world at the time.

Although many schools across the world now offer the AP Capstone Diploma, at the time we were among the first 100 high schools worldwide, including schools in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. There were a number of reasons we were awarded the AP Capstone Diploma program. Some of these reasons included our expansion and embraced efforts to increase access and equity for all learners. We had also begun offering every AP course for improving student opportunities. In addition, our program growth was approximately 700 percent, which was phenomenal.

Landslide

As a result of affording every student of every ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic background access by removing barriers, our program not only expanded in size, it increased in strength and provided an AP Capstone Diploma for every background that did not previously exist.

My efforts to lead Advanced Placement ran in tandem with my efforts to lead our STEAM programmatic course offerings. Just as I did not know when I began leading our Advanced Placement program that our program would grow to become the largest AP program in the nation, I was also unaware that leading STEAM would provide opportunities to completely transform the school’s learning spaces throughout the campus. 

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