AP Classes Gaining Popularity

ROGERS — The number of students choosing the challenge of Advanced Placement courses has doubled in Rogers since 2009.

Money, however, is coming to an end for the Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Science, which helped those numbers grow. High schools in both Rogers and Springdale participated in the initiative. Springdale joined in 2008 and Rogers joined in 2009.

Advanced Placement Calculus was the next logical step for Justin Davis, a senior at Rogers Heritage High School. Calculus is one of the seven Advanced Placement classes he has taken. The subject matter in those classes ranged from government to physics, and Davis claims a score of four on all of those he's finished.

Schools participating in the initiative offer a $100 gift card to students in math, science and English who score a three, four or five on their exams. The money was nice, Davis said, but he took the classes for his career.

Next year, there may be no gift card.

“That wouldn't have influenced me,” Davis said.

The initiative was paid for through National Math + Science Initiative, said Tommie Sue Anthony, president of the state initiative. She plans to ask the Legislature for operational money, but is developing plans for what they will support.

Until last year the initiative, in addition to student rewards, offered incentives to teachers, helped with the cost of Saturday study sessions and helped districts with the cost of teacher training, Anthony said.

Emphasis on math and science scores brings students math and science jobs, she said.

“We're building the groundwork to build the economy of Arkansas,” she said.

Last year, 1,061 students at both Rogers high schools took a total of 2,131 Advanced Placement exams. Forty-five percent earned a score of three or higher, qualifying them for college credit for their high school class work. In 2008, the year before Rogers joined the Arkansas initiative, 543 students took Advanced Placement exams.

Students at Springdale’s two high schools received $27,800 combined in gift cards for their performance on Advanced Placement tests last school year, officials said.

Student participation in Advanced Placement exams has risen dramatically in recent years. The district gave 737 exams in 2007 and 2,119 this year, according to Don Love, a Springdale School District assistant superintendent.

Love said he is hopeful a mechanism can be found for continuing the incentive program.

“I think the thought was that eventually communities would pull together and come up with the money on their own,” Love said. “But across the state that’s going to be tough in this economic environment.”

The more challenging classes are the bridge from high school to college, said Will Riley who teaches Advanced Placement Calculus and pre-Advanced Placement Geometry at Rogers Heritage. If students enroll in his class, he helps them do whatever it takes to succeed.

“It's about helping students believe that they can do the unbelievable,” Riley said.

The classes give students the best of two worlds, said Lance Arbuckle, assistant principal of Rogers High School.

“You're getting a college-like experience in an environment that has high school-like support,” Arbuckle said.

Parents, teachers and counselors form a team for students in high school, he said. Freshmen and sophomores at Rogers High School are encouraged to take pre-Advanced Placement classes in biology, American history and geometry.

It was the money from Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Science that helped build a base of pre-Advanced Placement classes, said Darla McGarrah, assistant principal of Rogers Heritage High School.

Students learn work ethic, study strategies and time management through the classes, she said. Teachers actively recruit for the advanced classes and Heritage has two full chemistry classes for the first time this year.

“Our science AP has burst at the seams,” McGarrah said.

The Rogers School District has used the outside money to build a foundation and a high school culture that values Advanced Placement classes, said Phil Eickstaedt, executive director of secondary curriculum and instruction.

The district paid about $22,000 to train teachers for the program and for the substitutes for their classes, and also pays stipends for three lead teachers to coordinate Advanced Placement classes in math, science and English.

Eickstaedt does not anticipate the district continuing to pay for the gift cards for students.

“We're not thinking that our participation will decline,” Eickstaedt said.

Jim Rollins, Springdale superintendent, said he hopes the program continues to be a major state initiative.

“Our first emphasis would be on trying to help the state recruit other partners who could carry it forward over time,” he said.

The district already puts about $60,000 of its own money into the program, Rollins said.

Assistant principals for the Rogers high schools said high-scoring students outside the grant go out to lunch for a reward, a practice they plan to continue and expand to those who get gift cards. Heritage students get pizza and Rogers High students take a trip to Olive Garden.

Students at Heritage said Friday they take the classes for the challenge, because they heard good things about the teacher and because they like the subject matter.

“Students who say they want to take an AP class generally do well in it,” Eickstaedt said.

Dave Perozek contributed to this report.