by Chris McElhatton    

Late nights, headaches, and piles of broken pencils are just a few of the signs that students have taken on too many classes. For this reason, among others, Valley Christianís administration has decided to take a new approach to the rising number of AP classes.

     With a record number of students taking AP and honors courses, there has been a concern among teachers that the high caliber learning in their classes may be lessened by too large of classes and students who are not prepared for such challenging courses. Because of these rising concerns, several changes are being introduced across the entire Advanced Placement department.

     Some of these changes include interviews prior to acceptance in the course, a tougher screening process, and the introduction of new teachers and classes. The easiest example of this is the AP Government courses offered to seniors. Before the 2005-2006 school year, the standard AP Government schedule was U.S. government first semester, and Economics second semester. For the current school year, though, AP economics was dropped in favor of AP Comparative Government. And for future years, AP Microeconomics will be introduced, giving students a choice of three AP Government-type courses to choose from, and three different AP tests in May. Also, AP Art History will be introduced, but counting only for History credits and not fine art ones.

     There is a rather long list of Valley Christian's AP courses, and the list doesnít stop growing. With AP Java Programming, AP Computer Science, AP English, AP Spanish, AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC, AP Statistics, AP Music Theory, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Physics, AP European History, AP United States History, AP Studio Art, as well as the new courses discussed above, it is easy to understand why there is such a big push to take multiple AP courses.

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