TUSD Earns Honor Roll Nod from College Board

Turlock Unified School District has been honored by the College Board for its efforts to increase Advanced Placement courses for high school students while maintaining the percentage of students who score 3 or higher on AP exams.

TUSD is one of 547 school districts this year in the United States and Canada to earn the honor from the College Board’s fifth annual AP District Honor Roll.

Reaching these goals indicates that TUSD is successfully identifying motivated, academically prepared students who are ready for the opportunity and rigors of AP courses. Since 2012, TUSD has increased the number of students in AP classes.

“Turlock Unified School District is honored to be recognized for ensuring equal access to our students with high quality educational choices,” said TUSD Superintendent Dr. Sonny Da Marto.

Data from 2014 shows that among African American, Hispanic and Native American students with a high degree of readiness for AP, only about half of students are participating. The first step to delivering the opportunity of AP to students is providing access through course availability.

“The devoted teachers and administrators in this district are delivering an undeniable benefit to their students: opportunity. When coupled with a students hard work, such opportunities can have myriad outcomes, whether building confidence, learning to craft effective arguments, earning credit for college, or persisting to graduate from college on time,” said Trevor Parker, the College Board’s senior vice president of AP and instruction. “We applaud TUSD’s conviction that a more diverse population of students is ready for the sort of rigor that will prepare them for success in college.”

Inclusion on the fifth annual AP District Honor Roll is based on the examination of three years of AP data, from 2010 to 2014, looking across 34 AP exams, including world language and culture. The following criteria were used:

• Increased participation or access to AP by at least four percent in large districts such as TUSD.
• Increase or maintain the percentage of exams taken by African American, Hispanic, and Native American students.
• Improve performance levels when comparing the percentage of students in 2014 scoring 3 or higher to those in 2012, unless the district has already attained a performance level at which more than 70 percent of its AP students were scoring 3 or higher.