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AP (Advanced Placement) Online Courses

AP (Advanced Placement) Online Academy in the Sioux City Community School District is provided to students in order to access AP courses which are not currently offered in the district. It is part of a grant from the Belin Blank Center at the University of Iowa. Taking part in this grant has also enabled our district to send teachers to be certified in the AP coursework at the Advanced Placement Teacher Training Institute in Des Moines each summer. Additionally, teachers who are certified then submit a syllabus to the College Board Audit for approval to teach the course in our district

Sioux City Schools have been a part of this online program since 2005. We offer several courses to students that are not currently part of the on site curriculum. These include:

• Microeconomics
• Macroeconomics
• American Government and Politics
• US History
• Statistics and Calculus courses

These courses are offered during the school day and students have access to their course work on computers during a scheduled class period. Each high school provides online mentors to keep students on track and help with time management and proctoring tests.

It is the intention of our district to provide onsite Advanced Placement courses in many curricular areas and this school year we have seen the district on site AP program grow from one course per high school to four in 2007-2008 and next year we will add three more including AP Studio Art, AP Music Theory and Government and Politics. Current on site offerings include: AP English and Literature, AP Biology, AP Chemistry and AP Psychology.

Advanced Placement courses and their final national standardized exams began in 1954 to help students, mostly white males, get through college more quickly so that they would have more time in the work force. Fifty years later, these courses and subsequent test results are being used to gain entrance into college. One research study found that high school seniors who took AP courses, graduated from college in four years at a much higher rate than students who did not take rigorous coursework such as AP. (Keng and Dodd)