PTHS Students Achieve Higher Marks on AP Exams

Paducah Tilghman High School has made some significant strides in a program that offers college-level courses to high school students.

At Monday's Paducah Board of Education meeting, Paducah Public Schools Assistant Superintendent William Black reported PTHS students have made some major gains within the national Advanced Placement program. The program offers a wide array of classes, and allows high school students to get college credit if they score high enough on exams. There are also many scholarships offered to students who excel within the program.

Black said the 2013-2014 school year marked some significant steps forward for the AP program at PTHS, noting students took 176 AP exams, the most ever. "We definitely had a major uptick in the number of actual tests taken" Black said. Students took 153 AP exams the previous year.

AP exams are scored on a 1-5 scale. A score of 3 or higher is required at most colleges and universities to obtain college credit. Black said 70 PTHS students achieved scores of 3 or higher during the 2013-2014 school year, the most in five years.

Black said school administrators and faculty are encouraging as many students as possible to enroll in AP courses, pointing out that this approach seems to be working. "We're putting an emphasis on getting as many kids to take the plunge on AP as possible," Black said. "Even on that metric, we're trending upward."