Foothills Composite High School will provide more opportunities for students to reach their academic potential next school year.
The Okotoks high school will introduce Advanced Placement (AP) programs in the English and math Grade 10 curriculum in September 2011 for those students who wish to take either course.
“We will be offering Advanced Placement for Grade 10 students in the fall,” said Foothills principal Todd Schmekel. “Then we will be adding Grade 11 and Grade 12 for each succeeding year. We will add grades as the years go on. We may offer more courses, like psychology, as we develop the program.”
He said adding an AP Arts component could also be a complementary course for students attending the Alberta High School of Fine Arts at Foothills.
Upon completing the AP test in Grade 12, students can receive university credit at most major universities in Canada, including the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary.
The first-year Foothills Composite principal said he knew the AP program would be a perfect fit upon his arrival at the school in September 2010.
“I was thinking about it ever since I came here,” Schmekel said. “We have very bright kids here and it was an opportunity to stretch kids at the very top.”
It’s also a good economic fit, which is an important detail these days.
There are start-up costs for AP such as textbooks and the cost to write the AP exam is approximately $85. Tentative plans are for the students to pay for exams, but if financial help is needed, the school would help cover the cost. However, Schmekel said there are no hefty fees for schools to belong to AP, such as is the case with the International Baccalaureate program.
As well, students can be selective in the AP program, they aren’t forced to take the full course load.
While it is academically challenging, AP still allows students to participate in athletics, band and other extra curricular aspects of school life, Schmekel said.
The AP program follows the Alberta curriculum, however, those students taking the AP stream will have some additional work to do compared to the mainstream curriculum.
Foothills Comp math teacher Chris Ginakos said he is looking forward to adding those extra AP ingredients next year.
“The AP course for math is calculus,” Ginakos said. “The beauty of AP is you are enhancing the students’ program throughout the three years, it’s not being thrown at them.”
Students taking the AP courses will write the same provincial exam as other students, English 10 for example. They do not write an AP exam. However, in Grade 12, the AP students would write the Alberta diploma exam as well as the AP exam.
The AP exams are written a few months in advance of the diploma exams so as not to put too much pressure on the students.
Schmekel said he will be meeting with students and parents at Okotoks Junior High School and Heritage Heights School — the feeder junior high schools for Foothills Composite High School — in the future to discuss the program.
