2021 AP Honor School Named In Paulding County

PAULDING COUNTY, GA — Georgia Superintendent Richard Woods named on Wednesday the state's 2021 Advanced Placement Honor Schools, including one in Paulding County.

"I extend my heartfelt congratulations to this year's AP Honor Schools," Woods said. "I commend them for their hard work to build strong Advanced Placement programs and, as a result, provide high-quality opportunities for Georgia students."

North Paulding High School in Dallas was honored as both an AP STEM School and an AP STEM Achievement School.

AP STEM Schools are those with a minimum of five students testing in at least four AP STEM courses (AP Calculus AB, AP Calculus BC, AP Statistics, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Environmental Science, AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2, AP Physics C, AP Computer Science A, AP Computer Science Principles).

AP STEM Achievement Schools AP STEM schools (see above definition) with at least 50 percent of all AP STEM exams earning scores of 3 or higher.

Georgia's public-school class of 2020 has the 17th-highest Advanced Placement pass rate in the nation, according to data released by the College Board on Wednesday.

Georgia's AP pass rate, and its rank among other states, stayed the same from the class of 2019 to the class of 2020 — an encouraging indicator given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the latter group of students.

The percentage of students earning a 3 or higher on an AP exam was 23.2 percent for Georgia's class of 2020, as it was for the class of 2019. Georgia students recorded stronger AP performance than most Southern states, scoring higher than their peers in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

The percentage of low-income AP test-takers who scored 3 or higher increased in Georgia for the second year in a row, rising from 43.7 percent for the class of 2019 to 49.4 percent for the class of 2020. This figure is based on the performance of students who used an AP exam fee reduction, which states look to as a marker of equitable participation for low-income students.

Overall, 38.5 percent of Georgia's class of 2020 took an AP exam while in high school. This is a slight decrease compared to the class of 2019 – of those students, 40.5 percent took at least one AP exam. The national participation rate dropped slightly as well, from 39.9 to 38.3 percent.