Fayette County Schools Receive AP Honors as Participation Rises

Three Fayette County high schools are among 115 throughout the state that have been named Advanced Placement (AP) Honor Schools by the Georgia Department of Education.

AP classes and exams are administered by the College Board, which also administers the SAT. AP classes offer rigorous college-level learning options to students in high school. Students who receive a 3, 4 or 5 on AP exams may receive college credit.

Honor schools are selected in three different categories based on the results of the 2009 AP exams. Both Fayette County High and Sandy Creek High are AP Access and Support Schools, meaning the schools had 30 percent of AP test takers that were African-American or Hispanic and at least 30 percent of all AP exams scored a 3 or higher. Starr’s Mill High is an AP Merit School, meaning the school had at least 20 percent of students taking AP exams and at least half of the exams scored a 3 or higher.

Fayette’s high school seniors took a total of 2,051 AP exams with 71 percent scoring a 3 or higher on at least one exam in 2009, that is significantly higher than the national average of 15.9 percent and state average of 17.8 percent. Although the county’s pass rate remained at 71 percent from 2008, the number of test takers jumped by 293.

Additionally, more of Fayette’s African-American and Hispanic students are participating in AP programs. Since 2004, African American participation has grown from 7 percent to 10 percent in 2009. Likewise, Hispanic participation has doubled from 2 percent in 2004 to 4 percent in 2009. This is significant given that the percentage of Hispanic enrollment in the general population was 6 percent in 2009.

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