AP scores, participation on rise for West Springfield

Date: 11/7/2014

WEST SPRINGFIELD – West Springfield High School has seen change in 2014 and lots of it, but with a brand new building and an interim principal comes transformation of a different sort.

Through its partnership with Mass Math and Science Initiative (MMSI), West Springfield High School students’ participation in Advanced Placement (AP) courses has nearly doubled.

AP classes are college level courses for high school juniors and seniors, with a nationwide end of the year exam scored on a 1 to 5 scale. Typically, scores of 3 or higher qualify students to earn college credit while still in high school, though each institution decides what scores they accept on an individual basis.

MMSI came to West Springfield High School as a three-year program focused on driving up participation and performance in AP classes through professional development and motivating students.

Then came Mass Insight.

“At the end of the three years MMSI went through a bit of an organizational shift themselves, and this current group, Mass Insight, is kind of a separation piece from that,” interim Principal Maria Silvestri said. “They decided that they didn’t want to lose out on the valuable information they could gather from kids being a part of this program.”

These initiatives have served as a catalyst for West Springfield’s program. In 2011, there were only 41 AP exam scores of a 3 or higher in the areas of math, science and English. Since then, Mass Insight has been involved and more and more tests have been graded a 3 or higher, nearly doubling in the spring of 2014 with 92 scores.

Though the coursework is challenging, Kathy Allman, the school’s guidance department chair, said that these classes are not meant to intimidate students.

“It was an effort to kind of remind students that AP classes are not just necessarily for who they believe to be the best or the brightest,” Allman said. “AP classes should also be for students who wanted to reach a little bit, who wanted to stretch academically, and maybe all they needed was that little bit of, ‘Hey, we believe you have the skills to be able to complete courses that look like this.’”

This attitude has not always been the case, Allman said. Before help from MMSI, “there wasn’t so much the nurturing part of, ‘Come on. You can do this. Stick with it.’ It was more along the lines of, ‘Either you’re in or you’re out. If you don’t want to do it, then you can leave,’” she said.

Interim Superintendent Michael Richard said part of that shift in perspective is in creating access to the AP curriculum and by “promoting AP as manageable for students of all abilities.”

One avenue that the school has taken is Saturday study sessions for each course. In addition to raffles and free pizza, students are able to take mock tests to gain an understanding of the kinds of questions that will appear on the test, as well as how they will be graded.

This also gives students additional time working with teachers to cover questions and concerns that may not be allotted in a regular class period. MMSI paid for training to prepare the teachers for this extra preparation, and as a result, it trickles down to the students.

“The teachers are bringing back to the classroom the good study strategies and the refined skills and honing and identifying the meat and potatoes of what an AP exam would look like,” Allman said.

While these classes prepare students for life beyond high school, they also can make it easier in more ways than just academic readiness.

“Kids can parlay these scores into thousands of dollars of scholarship opportunities, and that really speaks to the parents more than the students,” Allman said. “The students get it on some level too because that in some instances can allow a student to graduate early.”

The biggest component has been getting students to see themselves as AP caliber. Now that West Springfield High School administers the PSAT to all 10th and 11th grade students, they are able to identify AP potential.

Students are informed of the areas in which they are qualified, and for many, this is the first time they have considered themselves in the realm of AP courses. This nudge of encouragement has served as the confidence boost students need.

“Once you get kids to be successful in one AP class, then all of a sudden the self-confidence starts to go up,” Silvestri said.

This is what the teachers, guidance counselors and administrators have been hoping for.

“One student’s 5 might be another student’s 3, but either way, it’s the success and it’s the ‘feel good about myself’ part that we’re really pleased with,” Allman said. “We like them to see the value in each and every small success.”