The College Board recently awarded HHS the AP Honor Roll award for the 2023 school year. This award reflects HHS’s commitment to academics and the outstanding quality of teachers at the school.
To receive this award, schools must meet or exceed the criteria for a given recognition level for three qualification metrics. Each metric has a grade range from bronze to platinum depending on the percentage of students from each school who fall into the category.
Dr. Latta Johnston, HHS vice principal and Homewood’s AP Coordinator, is extremely proud of Homewood’s achievement of the award.
“What I have been particularly proud of is not necessarily our students who take a lot of AP classes, but the students who decide to challenge themselves and take one or two AP classes sometime in their high school career,” Johnston said. “The Homewood school system has broadened our program to more access to AP classes.”
The College Culture qualification section represents the percentage of students in the graduating class who took an AP exam at any point throughout their time in high school, scores disregarded. Only one AP exam per student contributes to this indicator.
Out of the 293 seniors in the class of 2023, 202 of them took an AP class in high school.
The qualification metrics for scoring are College Culture, College Credit, and College Optimization.
College Credit is the percentage of students in the graduating class who made a score of three or higher on an AP exam in high school. Only 1 exam per student is taken into account.
College Optimization is the percentage of students in the graduating class who took five or more AP exams in high school. 19 percent of the 2023 class fell into this category. One of these exams had to be taken in the 9th or 10th grade. AP honor roll also recognizes schools that encourage students to take AP classes earlier in high school instead of cramming them into their junior and senior years.
Homewood’s AP Language and experienced AP teacher Leslie Anastasia thought that this award was a great representation of Homewoods reputation.
“I think that anything that promotes the AP program is a positive, and taking an exam is beneficial for college,” Anastasia said. “Just taking a class will help you out. It is good pr to share that this is what is happening at our school, and encourages other kids to enroll in the class.”
HHS scored in the gold category for College Culture with 65 percent of students. In the College Credit and Optimization categories, it scored platinum, the highest-scoring category, with percentages of 50 percent and 15 percent.
In November, the College Board will release all the schools that received the AP Honor Roll award from the 2023 school year.
