Photo credit to Daniela Rybarczyk

A sign in the hallway celebrates PV’s past accomplishment achieving the fourth annual AP District Honor Roll award and shines light on PV achieving the ninth annual AP District Honor Roll award this year.

Pleasant Valley has been selected for the ninth annual AP District Honor Roll. This distinguished award is given by the College Board and recognizes schools that have a high percentage of students who received a three or higher on an AP test.

Pleasant Valley is one of two schools in the state of Iowa to be given this award. The other school was Cedar Falls Community School District. All the other schools given this award can be found on the College Board website.

To receive this award, a school must be committed to increasing access to AP classes and tests for underrepresented students. Schools must also maintain or increase the percentage of students receiving a three or higher on AP exams.

To put it in perspective, a five is the highest score one can get on any AP exam. Colleges also give AP credit to scores of a three, four or five.

Pleasant Valley has been awarded the AP District Honor Roll in 2013, 2014, 2017 and now 2018. “This is the fourth time in the past nine years that our AP students and teachers have received this recognition,” PV principal Mike Zimmer said.

PV offers many AP classes, from AP Spanish to AP Language & Composition to AP Chemistry. There are many opportunities for students to participate in AP classes in all areas of education.

Sara Russell teaches AP U.S. Government & Politics at PV. “I had 82 students take the exam last year and the pass rate was 76 percent for my students,” Russell said. Nationally the pass rate for that particular exam is 50 percent. This statistic is very impressive and shows how hard the PV staff and students worked to achieve this award.

Many of the AP classes at PV are structured in a way to help the students prepare for success on the AP exam. “All multiple choice tests and writings are formatted, phrased and graded in the AP style with AP expectations. We also take a number of practice exams throughout the semester,” Russell commented.

Russell also described how her course curriculum and materials align with the course topics dictated by the College Board.

As students begin to wrap up their first semester of AP classes, they can feel at ease knowing they are on track to have successful AP exams in May.