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NMSI Blog

Memorial High School Teachers Are Ready for AP

Over the last few months, we’ve had the pleasure to report the wonderful results of NMSI schools enrolled in the comprehensive AP program – and while it’s exciting to hear that more and more students are becoming college- and career-ready, we find it equally exciting whenever our program makes its way into new schools and districts. Oklahoma’s Tulsa Public School District is one of those new districts, where the program has been adopted by Memorial High School, and the teachers there are ecstatic about AP. We spoke to two teachers who are pumped about these rigorous classes in their schools,  Sommer Baker and Stephanie Lowery.
 
For Baker, this December will mark her 10th year of teaching, but this is her first year to teach AP Language Arts – in fact, she’s taking on two sections of the subject and she is absolutely thrilled for the opportunity to help all of her students master the more rigorous coursework and prepare them for their futures. She believes the AP program teaches her students how to think critically and analyze things much more in depth, and she’s even started to recruit some of her non-AP students into her AP class for next year by motivating them to take on more challenging coursework to prepare for college. Because, of her 10 years’ experience paired with the NMSI program and training, she has already seen a positive change in the way her students learn.
 
Unlike Baker, Lowery has taught AP before – specifically AP Chemistry – but this is her first year teaching in NMSI’s program, and she is just enthusiastic about the program at her school. Her class size has tripled this year alone, and she loves the extra time on task so that students get more time to work on the labs and experiments in class. She also believes that the focused tutoring and Saturday sessions really helps build up their confidence about passing their exams, which is crucial to student success. NMSI’s training program has also been a huge benefit to Lowery. The trainings she has attended have just blown her away by how much she has learned and how much she is able to translate directly into her practice. Plus, all of the NMSI videos are available online should she need to refresh her memory, and all of the prepared quizzes, tests, and labs are just invaluable for her as an AP chemistry teacher. In her own words, “NMSI has totally changed the way I teach.”
 
Hearing these stories is truly moving, especially for us folks in the office, and local CBS News station KOTV captured some of that excitement on camera at the special AP kick-off event:



Teachers like Sommer and Stephanie are the reason why NMSI’s program works and we can’t wait to see the fruits of their labors at Memorial High School over the course of the program! Here are some of their expected goals:

•Enrollment for AP math, science, and English course are is expected to increase 102%

•For the same subjects, the expected first year increase in passing AP scores is 580%

•Over the next three years, passing AP scores in math, science, and English are expected to increase 730%
We also believe that all of the teachers and students at Memorial High School can accomplish these goals and more, and we wish them the best of luck in doing so!