District Adds More Advanced Placement Courses

Hannah Heineman
Mirror staff writer
  
   The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s Chief Academic Officer Linda Kaminski told the Board of Education last Thursday that the high schools are offering more and more Advanced Placement (AP) courses.
   AP courses include college level material and require more academic skills than other courses.
   Students in AP courses who pass Educational Testing Service test on the subject material receive college credits at almost 90 percent of the colleges and universities in the United States.
   A total of 34 AP courses in 19 subject areas are offered nationally. Santa Monica High School now offers 18 AP courses in 65 class sections. Among the course offerings are Art, Foreign Language, Calculus, Statistics, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Government, Economics and United States History. Malibu High School gives 11 AP courses in 23 class sections there.
   In the 2000-2001 academic year, Samohi had only 37 sections. In the same period, the number of sections at Malibu rose from 16 to 23.
   The number of students enrolled in AP courses at Samohi rose from 1075 in 2000-2001 to 1738 in 2003-2004. The most popular AP courses are in English and Social Studies.
   In the 2002-2003 academic year, 3 percent of the students taking AP courses were African American. African Americans comprise 11 percent of the overall school population. In the same year, 16 percent of the AP students were Latino. 32 percent of the overall student body is Latino. During that same year, 6 percent of Samohi’s economically disadvantaged took the advanced courses. 56 percent of the AP students are girls.
   In other business the Board approved by a 5 to 0 vote [Board member Oscar de la Torre abstained and Board member Julia Brownly was absent] a Sprint PCS microcell facility that will be located on the District’s Malibu Canyon Road property. The proposed lease calls for Sprint to pay the District $1,500 per month with a 3 percent annual increase per year for 24/7 access to the facility. The initial lease would run for five years with options for subsequent five-year periods. Sprint would pay all entitlement, permit and utility fees and required taxes.