With a brand new school year comes no shortage of change. In 2024-25, that will be especially true for Windward’s history department as APs become history.

APs, or Advanced Placement classes, are college level courses offered by the College Board across a wide range of subjects. They offer students the chance to receive college credit and show that they are challenging themselves academically through preparation for the rigors of higher-level education. The courses culminate in a national exam taken by thousands of students each year and graded on a scale from 1 to 5, with 3 being a passing grade.

Windward currently offers four history APs: AP European History, AP US History, AP Art History, and AP Comparative Government.

Brittany Berriz, head of the history department, explained that they will be phased out over the next few years, noting that this shift is just one of many.

“We’ve actually been involved in a years-long rethinking and reconsideration of the scope and sequence of our classes,” she said, “meaning the content we cover, the order in which we cover it, how we introduce and scaffold skills.”

This included the introduction of classes like Habits of Historical Thinking, Honors US and the World, and Introduction to Global Studies.

Over the years, it’s become clear that there are drawbacks to APs, and at their core is the content limitations. With so much to learn, in so little time in preparation for the exam at the end of the year—especially as the curriculum continues to grow with new historical developments—students and teachers alike have begun to feel that they are unable to cover course material to the level of depth they may desire.

Not getting college credit will always be a detriment.
—Zoë Katz (‘26)

By  reordering classes so that US history can be taken in 10th grade, Berriz stated, “With US history in 11th, you have only a few spaces where you can choose classes you’re interested in. Now in 11th and 12th grade you get to dig into some really amazing electives that allow you to seek things that you find of interest to you,” adding that this project would be in collaboration with students, based on their preferences and department expertise, creating the space for a reintroduction to the original research and project-based learning that gets cut in AP classes.

Berriz added that “the AP classes in the middle feel a little bit out of sequence with that kind of original, deep historical work.”

Still, many students first approached the change with a bit of hesitation, acknowledging the benefits of APs as well.

“I felt as though Windward students and colleges alike place lots of value on AP classes,” said Beth Davids (‘25). “As a junior, without standardized College Board exams, I wondered what would help differentiate me as a student in the eyes of college admissions officers.”

She also voiced concerns about the impact on more humanities-based students versus STEM-oriented students.

“A student who excels in math and science will likely take as many as possible and will likely score well,” she explained. “However, for humanities-oriented students, they may choose to take fewer of these courses because the content does not appeal to them or because they are less confident in these fields.”

Davids went on to mention that the option to report 4s and 5s on APs will now solely benefit STEM students, making it so that their profiles come across as more rigorous.

Some of the older students have really expressed a lot of enthusiasm for not having the constraints of the AP.
—Brittany Berriz, Head of History Department

Zoë Katz (‘26) explained, “Not getting college credit will always be a detriment,” potentially forcing students who plan to major in the liberal arts to take a beginner course they might have otherwise tested out of.

However, both also acknowledged that such qualms faded as they learned more and more about what the future would look like, including a new emphasis on key skills, which Berriz explained to be in classes “where you’re really learning to ask historical questions, and you’re doing research, and you’re analyzing primary sources, and you’re writing original arguments.”

Moreover, students would still be implementing skills from APs, which include change and continuity, causation, and contextualization, “in a more authentic way where you’re not having to write formulaic essays under time constraints, or where you’re not having to consider so much content that some of the nuances get lost.”

Katz expressed her enthusiasm regarding the new curriculum, stating, “From a learning perspective, I think the way they’re going to structure the history classes is going to be amazing … I think they’re going to be more college preparatory.” Katz went on to talk about how more in-depth analysis of sources and writing research papers would provide students with the skills they’d need as they moved on to higher education.

While Davids will be graduating before the changes take full effect, she was still  “excited by the possibility for future students to be able to take tailored courses that teach them how to think analytically and comparatively rather than cram for May.”

Though Berriz recognized the nervousness surrounding any change as big as this, she found the response to be positive overall.

“I think right off the bat, some of the older students have really expressed a lot of enthusiasm for not having the constraints of the AP and really getting to take rich, amazing, seminar-style elective classes,” she said. “And other students who come at it with a little more of a curiosity have left conversations, I think, really excited.”