WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — Though some schools did reduce their available Advanced Placement course offerings, Polk County has overall increased the number of upper-level math and science courses offered in its district schools for the 2019-2020 school year.
- Four Polk public high schools reduced AP science, math course offerings
- Reductions came due to low enrollment, students not passing AP exams
- Schools instead offering more dual-enrollment courses
- More Polk County stories
Winter Haven High School is one of 10 public high schools in Polk County that has increased or maintained its number of available upper-level math and science course offerings this school year, compared to five years ago.
Ariston Walker, 16, is in the race to become the school’s valedictorian. He’s taking Advanced Placement, Cambridge AICE, and dual enrollment college courses to help him achieve that goal and more.
He dreams of going to Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study computer science, and says the multitude of rigorous courses offered at Winter Haven High has helped him.
“I definitely feel like AP is more work intensive. It’s more about retention of knowledge,” said Ariston Walker.
Walker believes taking the intense course load will help him get accepted into MIT, and he's not alone.
“If a student is trying to get into a highly selective college or university, you know a top ten, top 100, that student is going to need to have AP, IB or AICE, some combination and dual enrollment in that," said Dr. Michael Akes, Chief Academic Officer for Polk County Public Schools. "So across our district, when we look at that, in the last two years, the students taking those courses have actually increased by 35 percent.”
However, four public high schools in Polk County reduced their offerings of advanced placement science and math courses. Tenoroc High School was one of them.
The high school has since shifted its focus to dual enrollment courses.
“Dual enrollment is easier than AP classes because my dual enrollment class, I could pass it and get my college credits, unlike AP," said Francisco Baez, a student at Tenoroc High School. "I could pass my AP class, but if I fail my AP exam, I won’t get my college credits."
Tenoroc Principal Jason Looney said there was a low demand for those courses and also that students were having trouble passing the exam
For two years, according to Looney, the school had three students enrolled in the AP Calculus course and none of them passed the exam. He also explained that with dual enrollment courses are only a semester long, versus AP classes, which are yearlong.
Since the shift in focus to dual enrollment, the school has drastically increased the number of students participating in those courses. The school also has a power academy for students who want to study to be a lineman or electrician after high school and not attend college.