Ocean Springs High Honored for High AP Test Scores
Students, with the help of their teachers and the initiative, dramatically increased their number of qualifying scores on advanced placement exams. Students are cashing in on doing well in school. Bryanna Shaw is a senior at Ocean Springs High. Thursday, she walked across the stage, not to accept a diploma, but a $100 check.
Shaw is just one of the deserving students who was rewarded, along with 11 teachers, for increasing Ocean Springs High’s test scores in advanced placement exams. Shaw says, "They definitely made sure I had the right preparations to go into the test, and just me working hard and studying over anything."
After receiving a grant last year and partnering with the National Math and Science Initiative, Ocean Springs High increased qualifying exam scores from 18 to 195 its first year, the largest increase ever in the nation. Lori Brennan, AP Composition teacher, says, "It was great because Mississippi is always ranked at the bottom of everything, especially education. The people are so hard on the education system in the State Mississippi, and people like us in Ocean Springs do really well, so to get this national recognition, it feels like we’re getting what we deserve."
The AP exams qualify students for college credit and are a prime indicator of whether students are adequately prepared for college. Dr. Bonita Coleman-Potter, Superintendent of the Ocean Springs School District, says, "The AP exam is the same exam that children in Rhode Island take, children in Massachusetts take, and we have absolutely without a shout of a doubt that our students here in Mississippi, specifically at Ocean Springs High School, can live up to any challenge academically."
Students and teachers were awarded $100 from the National Math and Science Initiative for passing their exams. Brennan hopes the students will remember hard work pays off. She closes, "Just try to teach them more than anything else, confidence in themselves, that they were capable of doing this, and like Bryanna Shaw said, it paid off."
The school’s female students demonstrated the most growth, increasing from three qualifying math and science scores, to 47.
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