RPS Seeks to Increase Minority Student Enrollment in AP Courses

During a presentation by Revere Public Schools (RPS) Executive Director of Data and Accountability Jamie Flint to the Revere School Committee it was not surprising to see that 59 percent of Reverew High School’s population in Latino while only 30 percent is White.

However, what may be surprising to some is the Latino enrollment in high school Advanced Placement (AP) courses does not reflect the demographics of the student population and RPS is hoping to change that.

According to Flint’s presentation at the November 16 meeting, Latino enrollment in Science and Technology AP courses is relatively equal with enrollment of White students with 39 percent being Latino and 38.1 percent being White.

However, the numbers seem to become more lopsided with only 37.9 percent being enrolled in English Language Arts AP courses, 36 percent enrolled in Math AP courses, and only 35.5 percent being enrolled in AP Social Science courses at the High School. The one area where Latino students far outnumber White students in AP course enrollment is Foriegn Language where 63.3 percent enrolled are Latino.

“The demographic breakdown really hasn’t changed dramatically over the last few years,” said Flint. “This is the current makeup of students enrolled in Revere High (AP courses). We continue to work on addressing the need for placement participation and (RHS) is very excited to partner with MathInsight-the same partner that we have in our equity audit.”

Flint said with this partnership RHS and MassInsight are looking at student participation and success in AP courses since last March.

“With MassInsight as a partner we will have an opportunity to work with other school districts to strategize on improving preparation and exam success, focusing on low income students in AP courses,” said Flint.

With input from other school districts, MassInsight and RHS are meeting bi-weekly and recently created a leadership group that works to help analyze student data around AP enrollment successes.

“They are very excited and report that by next year we’re going to start to see a more dramatic change in these AP course demographics because they’ve been working very hard at increasing their communication with families over AP coursework, as well as engaging teachers,’’ said Flint.

At the meeting Revere Superintendent Dr. Dianne Kelly said RPS has been taking measures to get more Latino students enrolled in AP courses with the goal of having more Latino students taking advantage of honors-type courses.

“You’ll see that our student population is 30% White and 59%, Hispanic or Latino,” said Kelly. “What we want to do is get to a space where our AP enrollment is reflective of our overall student enrollment and what Jaime has shown us is that that is not the case.  Our goal is to have AP classes that are reflective of our overall student body. We also hope to tear down the kinds of barriers that prevent equitable access to rigorous curriculum so that all students can access this kind of work. One of the ways that we do that is by taking away the kind of rules that say things like, “You have to have been in honors classes in order to take AP courses”, and by taking away other kinds of rules and structures that we have historically created in our educational systems.”