Stevensville High School AP program gets national recognition

Students at Stevensville High School aren’t just encouraged to go to college after graduation, many of them are basically in college right now – at least if you look at their class schedules.

Stevensville High School’s 450 students, more than half of whom come from low-income backgrounds, have access to 12 honors classes in the Advanced Placement Program – a characteristic that Principal Jim Notaro believes is the highest in the state for a school its size. More than a third of the students are taking at least one of those courses, he said.

Those facts aren’t going unnoticed, at least not on a state and national level.

Stevi’s Advanced Placement Program is in its fifth year and received kudos this fall in two education publications – “The College Board Review” and “Northwest Education.”

The College Board is a nonprofit membership association whose mission is to connect students to college success, according to its Web site. It serves seven million students and their parents, 23,000 high schools and 3,500 colleges. The AP Program is one of its best known services.

“Northwest Education,” a regional publication, covers education issues in the states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.

AP classes offered at Stevensville include U.S. history, government and politics, English, English literature, Spanish, art (studio drawing), environmental science, world history, statistics, calculus A-B, calculus B-C, and psychology.

Peggy Mullin, a counselor at the school, came up with the idea to offer several AP courses more than five years ago while working with gifted students. She noticed many high-potential students, not just in the gifted program, were uninterested in their classes. She also noticed that students were not offered access to the classes which can give students a head start on a college education.

“We are still kind of a secret in western Montana.”

That is why Mullin is trying to get the word out to other schools from rural or low-income areas. She stresses that money is out there if those schools’ teachers and administrators are willing to take on the challenge of offering more AP classes.

by PERRY PEARSON – Ravalli Republic

Full Story: http://www.ravallinews.com/articles/2005/11/30/news/news04.txt