After months of discussion among Mira Costa administration, Principal Dr. Ben Dale released his proposed Advanced Placement and Honors enrollment policy, which includes changes in both prerequisite and commitment form procedure. These proposed changes are irresponsible and will have detrimental effects on students and teachers.
A complete disregard for teacher input is apparent in this policy. Despite many meetings and surveys through which administrators attempted to gain feedback from teachers and students, the new AP policy has been met with much resistance from these groups. There is a clear disconnect between the teaching staff and administration. The policy will never be effective if the teachers, who will be responsible for its implementation, do not support the changes.
Dale and the rest of the Costa administration should not dictate what is an acceptable prerequisite. Instead, the AP teachers should decide what classes will prepare students for their own courses. Dale’s add/drop period proposal, which eliminates commitment forms, should be amended to require a teacher or guidance counselor approval in order to prevent “teacher shopping,” something the administration has taken a hard line on in the past.
The current waiver process is unclear and convoluted at best. Students should be able to waive into classes, but the process needs to be more streamlined and significantly stricter with more eligibility restrictions, contrary to what Dale’s new, more lenient policy proposes.
This new policy exhibits a less strict AP program, which attempts to push the middle student into more rigorous and challenging classes, just as basic level students were shoehorned into College Preparatory classes last year.
Once again, the administration is attempting to decide what is best for students and teachers without giving either group’s opinions much consideration. The one survey the administration gave to students overwhelmingly showed that a significant amount CP students were genuinely uninterested in taking AP classes. This survey directly contradicts Dale’s proposal and proves that the student body and the administration are not on the same page.
Instead of focusing on expanding AP classes, the administration should consider bringing back basic classes and increasing the rigor of CP classes in order to meet the needs of the middle student. While increasing access to AP classes may seem desirable on the surface, doing so would only dilute the rigor of AP classes and CP classes at Costa.
In theory, AP classes should be treated as comparable to college courses. In practice, Dale’s attempt to broaden course availability will threaten the rigor of every classroom at Mira Costa.
Leave a Reply