Next year, new AP classes are scheduled to be added to the Oakland Tech class catalog. AP classes offer an opportunity to earn college credits to ease the workload in college, and use the AP exam as a way to measure the students’ understanding. Furthermore, APs encourage students by rewarding them with a GPA boost in exchange for taking a more rigorous class. According to Dr. Woolridge a main goal with adding new AP classes is to lower the demand for peer tutoring. According to Dr. Woolridge, “peer tutoring is not just for students to have a free period just to put your feet up and chill and hang out”. Recently, faculty have reported increased numbers of students skipping classes due to the lack of structure and responsibility. Dr. Woolridge adds that students who still want to be a peer tutor will gain more responsibility and may even sign “student contracts” to stay accountable.
According to the new catalog presented during course selection, AP Drawing, AP Human Geography or AP African American Studies, AP 2-D Design Studio, AP Microeconomics, AP Cybersecurity, AP Seminar, and AP Networking will be offered. Currently, Oakland Tech offers fifteen AP classes to students. Administration picks the new additions based on the data of the course selection form the prior year. According to Dr. Woolridge even if a class did not gain enough popularity, Administration will continue to create some “buzz around it” in hope of adding unpopular classes the following year. Furthermore Oakland Tech aims to not hire new teachers, but instead looks to replace the classes of preexisting teachers who have the qualifications to teach AP classes. As an example Dr. Woolridge adds that AP Drawing would replace one of the regular art classes Tech currently offers.
Student opinions on the new classes vary. Incoming freshmen and rising sophomores may be pleased with the increased selection of classes. Rising juniors and seniors might feel frustrated with the new class additions. After interviewing Health Academy junior Carys Squach, she states, “We aren’t given the choices to do APs our sophomore year. And I feel like adding in a bunch more APs that we can’t take is just like, it’s really unfair for us”. Some students feel as though there’s an imbalance between humanities and STEM classes, with most of the classes being added not helping that imbalance. There are around thirteen humanities classes compared to the ten STEM classes.
The increased class catalog for next year will hopefully give students an opportunity to try new things they might enjoy while also getting a GPA boost and college credits. Carys states that this might also bring attention to students’ wishes for more STEM classes or a wider range of subjects.