The Rockbridge County Public Schools (RCPS) District was recently added to the College Board’s AP Honor Roll, one of only five districts in Virginia to receive this honor.  

“This honor reflects many years of preparation and devotion to rigorous  

standards and expectations,” said Principal Haywood Hand. “It means that RCHS has dedicated, engaging, and tireless teachers that embrace the challenge of teaching an AP course.”

According to apcentral.collegeboard.org, inclusion on the Honor Roll is based on three factors: increased participation in AP courses, increases in minority pass rate, and increased average scores over a three-year period.  

“We spend an exorbitant amount of time recruiting potential AP students based on PSAT  

results and evaluating historical academic performance in prerequisite courses,” said Hand. “It is also important to establish a school culture where student participation in the AP curricula is inclusive rather than exclusive.”  

Almost all of the responsibility for success falls on the AP teachers, like AP Government and Politics teacher Christopher Gallagher.

“Before I taught the class for the first time, the school did send me to a training conference about AP government, and they may actually do the same for me in a few years before the new curriculum rollout comes,” said Gallagher.  

In addition to the rigorous work required by AP teachers, AP students and families must  sacrifice hours of extra time outside of school to succeed.

“We are fortunate to have the cooperation and support of ambitious students and families who are willing to sacrifice so much in order to meet the rigorous demands expected of the AP curriculum,” said Hand.

The inclusion of the RCPS district comes amidst a wave of restructuring of the AP tests.  

“One of the critiques of the AP Program is that students do well on these tests,” said Gallagher. “They pass them; they skip over certain levels in college; they go on to the secondary level, but they haven’t mastered certain skills that professors will have expected them to master in their earlier classes.”

To compensate for this discrepancy, the College Board has decided to make sweeping changes to many of its AP curricula.

“This course is one of the College Board courses that is just now getting a new College Board framework,” said Gallagher. “What the College Board is trying to do is make sure that their exams correlate with the expectations of whatever the general consensus is, about what, for instance, a government class should give students at the college level.”

Hand is optimistic that these changes will not negatively affect the district’s placement on the Honor Roll.  

“We have an incredible group of experienced and proven AP teachers that immensely  

cares about each student’s success,” said Hand.