'The Struggle Is Real:' Small School Districts Find It Difficult To Fill State AP Course Requirements

A law in Oklahoma requires all school districts to offer at least four Advanced Placement courses to students, but some smaller school districts say the law isn't one-size-fits-all.

At any school, education is a top priority, as it is at Caney Valley Public Schools.

"In our mission statement, we say that we're here to prepare all of our students for graduation, not just the ones that are going to go to college," said District Superintendent Steve Cantrell.

For Oklahoma high schools, part of that education includes Advanced Placement courses.

"As of right now, we have AP Literature and AP Language, two of those. They can also take AP classes online if they choose to, but a lot of our kids don't; it's pretty tough online," said Caney Valley High School counselor Kelly Phillips.

Part of the difficulty stems from low enrollment, but after House Bill 3400 went into effect for the 2024-2025 school year, all Oklahoma school districts are required to offer four AP classes. Smaller districts, however, don’t have the staff to teach them or the demand from students to take the courses.

"To be able to offer a class that has four students in it, that's very difficult on our district economically because we need our teachers to teach as many kids as possible," Superintendent Cantrell said.

In the 2024-2025 school year, Caney Valley had 22 students enrolled in its two in-person AP courses. Preston Public Schools had even fewer.

"The struggle is real," said Preston High School Principal Scott McCullah.

McCullah said only a handful of students were taking AP courses at Preston. "Whenever we do offer AP, they do really well, but out of 195 students, we only have seven in AP right now," he said.

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

"I don't think we're shorting our kids, but the size of staff and then just being able to find staff is a challenge for Oklahoma," Principal McCullah said.

These two districts aren’t alone. "I know all the principals in our county, and getting this done—having the four AP courses—has been extremely difficult for a lot of us," McCullah said.

While the transition may have been easier for larger districts, leaders at these schools wish there had been more communication to benefit their students.

"There’s got to be some flexibility from the legislature about how and when we incorporate those," 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 more than half of them.