“The Struggle is Real:” Small school districts struggle to meet state AP course requirements

An Oklahoma law requires all school districts to offer at least four Advanced Placement courses to their students, but some smaller school districts say the law is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Education is a top priority at every school, including Caney Valley Public Schools.

“In our mission statement we say we are here to prepare all of our students for graduation, not just those going to college,” said District Superintendent Steve Cantrell.

For high schools in Oklahoma, part of this education includes advanced courses.

“Right now we have two of them, AP Literature and AP Language. They can take AP courses online if they want, but many of our kids don’t; online it’s pretty difficult,” said Caney Valley High school counselor Kelly Phillips.

Part of the difficulty is due to low enrollment, but since the enactment of House Bill 3400 for the 2024-2025 school year, all school districts in Oklahoma are required to offer four AP classes. However, smaller districts neither have the staff to teach them nor the demand from students to take the courses.

“Being able to offer a class of four students is very economically difficult for our district because we need our teachers to teach as many children as possible,” said Superintendent Cantrell.

During the 2024-2025 school year, Caney Valley had 22 students enrolled in the two face-to-face AP courses. At Preston Public Schools there were even fewer.

“The struggle is real,” said Scott McCullah, principal of Preston High School.

McCullah said only a handful of students take AP courses at Preston. “When we offer AP, they do really well, but out of 195 students we only have seven in AP right now,” he said.

He said another challenge was ensuring they had enough staff to teach students.

“I don’t think we’re putting our kids at a disadvantage, but the size of the staff and the sheer ability to find staff is a challenge for Oklahoma,” Principal McCullah said.

These two districts are not alone. “I know all the principals in our county, and it was extremely difficult for many of us to accomplish this — to complete the four AP courses,” McCullah said.

While the transition might have been easier for larger districts, leaders of these schools wish there had been more communication to help their students.

“The Legislature needs to have some flexibility in how and when we incorporate these,” Cantrell said.

In the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s Advanced Placement Annual Report, students across the state took 2,000 AP exams and passed just over half of them.