Barrington High touts AP successes

Barrington High School officials provided more proof Tuesday that they are properly preparing their students for the next level.

Associate Principal Steve McWilliams, who is taking over as the school's principal next year, gave school board members an update on Barrington's continuously growing Advanced Placement program.

The program allows students to start earning college credit before they even step foot on a university campus.

Students can take a variety of Advanced Placement courses in English, fine arts, world language, mathematics, science and social studies. If the students pass an exam at the end of the course, they are able to earn college credit.

During the 2006-07 school year, McWilliams said, more than 21 percent of the school's nearly 3,000 students took at least one Advanced Placement exam.

Overall, more than 1,350 Advanced Placement exams were taken, up from 1,200 the year before.

"Our AP program is expanding and becoming more and more popular," McWilliams said.

Out of the exams taken, McWilliams said students passed 83 percent of them.

Those numbers are comparable with what students at neighboring schools like Stevenson, New Trier, Libertyville and Fremd high schools are achieving.

"We are very competitive with that group," McWilliams said.

Last year, the school offered 26 different Advanced Placement courses.

"We have really touched on all of our departments," McWilliams said.

Superintendent Tom Leonard said they will consider at adding more classes in the future.

"We are constantly looking to what is out there and making sure it is available to our students," Leonard said.

Board member Cara Richardson said one of her children benefited from the program by earning enough college credits to be considered a sophomore before ever getting to school.

"I look at it as something that Barrington does that has a financial impact on the household," Richardson said on the possible fewer years of tuition that might have to be paid.