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The Mountain View Los Altos High School District’s board approved continuing to offer AP Seminar at Mountain View High, despite tensions with administrators and misgivings about not also teaching the advanced course at Los Altos High.
In a 4-0 vote, with Esmeralda Ortiz abstaining, the board gave district officials the greenlight on Monday to continue offering the sophomore English class, which has already been running at Mountain View High for the last two years.
Currently, Mountain View High 10th graders can take either world literature or AP Seminar. Los Altos High students, on the other hand, have the choice of taking world literature or world literature honors. Board members expressed interest in aligning the two campuses.
“To me, equity is we offer both courses in both schools,” Board President Thida Cornes said.
Concerns were also raised about why AP Seminar hadn’t come to the board for approval before teachers first introduced the class in the 2024-25 school year. Associate Superintendent Teri Faught previously acknowledged at a March 23 meeting that it had been a “slip” to not bring the course to the board originally.
On Monday, Ortiz objected to approving AP Seminar yet, instead wanting the district to take a deeper look at data to see if the course is improving student performance.
However, with about 300 Mountain View High students already enrolled in AP Seminar for next school year, some board members said it seemed necessary to approve the course – at least for now.
“We could approve it now but not keep it, or we could approve it now and then put it at the other school the next year,” board member Catherine Vonnegut said.
Cornes suggested allowing the class to continue on a pilot basis. That prompted administrators to push back, with Faught and Superintendent Eric Volta questioning why board members seemed to be proposing a new approval process for this specific course.
“It feels like we’re singling out this class because of the oversight of three years ago,” Volta said. “It seems like we’re creating a separate practice, a separate scrutiny for one class that we’re not doing with our entire AP offerings.”
AP Seminar is an English class aimed at helping sophomores gain skills in critical thinking, collaboration and research, according to the College Board, the organization which creates Advanced Placement curricula.
Mountain View High School English teacher Lindsay Cohen, who teaches AP Seminar, described the class as being very different from other AP courses.
“A normal AP is a snapshot of who you are on one day, how you took that test,” Cohen said. “AP seminar has a portfolio aspect to it, which I think is incredibly indicative of long form work and really what students have done over the course of the year.”
AP Seminar is considered an “entry-level” AP course that’s meant to prepare students to take more advanced classes, according to district officials. At Mountain View High, 86% of AP Seminar students got a three through five on the AP test, which Faught said many colleges view as a passing score. Some more selective universities require a four or five for the class to count for college credit.
After ultimately approving AP Seminar, board members said they wanted to take a look at aligning class offerings between the two schools at a future meeting.
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When my kids were in High school there was commonly slightly different offerings. Big stink about nothing.