Course Catalog
District Practice for Advanced Placement Examinations:
The Great Neck Public Schools believe that an Advanced Placement exam is a culminating experience which follows a year of college-level work in an AP class which has College Board approval for both its curriculum and instructor. Therefore, the Great Neck Public Schools will only register students for AP exams for which they have been enrolled in a corresponding AP course in their respective high schools.
This practice of requiring students to complete a year of college-level work in a College Board certified course of study before Great Neck will administer an Advanced Placement exam has been in place for more than a decade. Exceptions are extremely rare and have been approved only when truly extenuating circumstances exist; exceptions are NOT granted simply because a student has taken an exam preparation course outside of the District. Only the College Board may approve a school, its instructors, and its programs of study and, should an outside school meet these standards, it would be in a position to administer the AP examination.
Requests for exceptions to this practice must be made in writing to Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools Dr. Stephen Lando by September 30th so that enrollment in review courses (exclusive of enrollment in a corresponding Great Neck Advanced Placement course) is undertaken without an expectation of AP exam registration in the Great Neck Public Schools.
District Practice for Schedule Changes:
Schedule Changes: All schedule changes will follow procedures posted on each school’s guidance website. Typically, students may add a new course to their schedule within the first two (2) weeks of the start of the course, replacing one (1) elective course with another shall be done within the first two (2) weeks of the start of the course.
Dropping a Course: Provided that the resulting schedule maintains the course load required by state law and Board of Education Policy, a student may drop a full-year course up until the mid-point of the 2nd marking period, and a half-year course up until the mid-point of the first quarter in which that course is taken. Students will not be permitted to drop a course after these deadlines.
*If an AP course is dropped after November 15th, a processing fee of approximately $40 will be assessed in accordance with new test ordering policies instituted by College Board.
Course Level Changes—High School: Students may change course level (for example, AP to Honors, Honors to Regents) up to the mid-point of the 2nd marking period. Students will not be permitted to change course levels after this deadline. Grades will not follow from one level course to another. NOTE: Students who remain in an Advanced Placement course but who do not sit for the corresponding examination will have the AP course designation removed from their transcript and be assigned the course grade which they otherwise would have received.
Exceptions: Exceptions to the add/drop deadlines may be made for ungraded and support classes such as study skills unless these courses are required by State Law, Board of Education Policy, Individualize Education Plan, or 504 accommodation.
In cases of compelling educational need, these practices may be overridden by the building principal in consultation with the teacher, department head, and guidance counselor.
Statement on Outside Study for Acceleration Purposes
The Great Neck Public Schools believe that abbreviated outside study (such as summer study) for acceleration purposes does not provide students with the depth of understanding required to move into the subsequent honors level courses, and achieving high passing grades on Regents exams does not demonstrate that a student has met the standard we hope our students will achieve during ten months spent in similarly titled courses in our schools. Therefore, the practice is highly discouraged. In order to fully understand our practices, students intending to enroll in and complete outside study are required to meet with their guidance counselor prior to registering for and completing such coursework.
In particular, the Great Neck Public Schools neither transfer grades nor accept outside coursework as appropriate preparation for honors courses, and study at non-accredited establishments will not be accepted for credit. As determined in consultation with the academic department, guidance counselor, and building administrator, students who undertake such courses without prior permission will need to repeat them (they may be placed into an honors section based on work completed), be placed into the non-honors course that is next in the sequence, or, in those cases where our schools’ course offerings do not include a non-honors option, not be scheduled in that content area for a given school-year.