Courtesy of Saratoga High School
The Saratoga High math department’s recommended pathway.
To ensure students take the appropriate math course and cut down on the huge number of disruptive drops and class changes in recent years, the math department is implementing a new policy for the ‘25-‘26 school year: requiring students who take an online or summer course with the intention of accelerating to any honors or AP-level math course — Algebra 2 Honors, Precalculus Honors, AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC — to take a placement test to confirm their ability to handle it.
Following the lead from the Los Gatos High math department, SHS’s math department developed the placement test policy to help students and families make more informed decisions about course selection, according to principal Greg Louie.
AP Calculus AB and Algebra 2 teacher Lisa Ginestet-Araki said the test is still in development, but the SHS math department plans on making the test free-response and 2-3 hours long. It will take place on Aug. 7, during the week before school starts.
If a student does not pass the test, they are not allowed to take the honors or AP course they are trying to accelerate into.
At SHS, students follow a pathway to decide their math courses in high school that incrementally gets more difficult. However, some students deviate from the recommended pathway by taking math courses outside of school in order to advance more quickly to higher-level classes.
For example, a student could take Geometry over the summer and advance directly from Algebra 1 to Algebra 2 Honors. In this case, they would have to take the placement test. However, if the student decided to take Algebra 2 rather than Algebra 2 Honors, they would not be required to take the placement test.
Last school year, 30 students made schedule changes after deciding to take outside math courses to advance; this school year, it was 74 students.
This policy mainly affects Algebra 2 Honors and Precalculus Honors; combined, the classes experienced roughly 60 drops this past fall.
While math teachers strongly advise against taking outside math courses with the goal of acceleration in their math pathway, students differ in their opinions about the policy change.
One of the students who dropped from Algebra 2 Honors to Algebra after accelerating told The Falcon that outside math courses didn’t prepare her for honors-level courses at SHS, noting that questions and concepts are much more advanced here. Still, she — alongside many other students — admits to feeling significant pressure to take higher-level courses in the first place.
“All my friends were taking [Algebra 2 Honors], and I didn’t want to be different. I just thought that was super embarrassing, so I just also chose [the class],” the freshman said. “I feel like a lot of people don’t know what they’re setting themselves up for. They just choose to take a hard course that’s not right for them.”
Other students have succeeded in the higher class with the summer class approach. Junior Jena Lew, who took Geometry online through a summer course at Saint Francis High School, described her experience as challenging but positive.
Lew finished Algebra 1 after 8th grade at Redwood Middle School and decided to take Geometry over the summer before 9th grade after a few friends convinced her to take it with them.
“It was hard to self-study, but you get used to it if you learn how to plan your time. I remember spending my entire summer before freshman year just studying,” Lew said.
Going into Algebra 2 Honors, Lew saw success thanks to her strong foundation in Algebra 1. Now, Lew is taking AP Calculus BC, and while she thinks she forgot most of her skills from Geometry, Lew still recommends advancing in order to be able to take calculus in junior year; the class can be helpful for college applications and getting a head start in preparing for the SAT.
“With the placement test, there’s another barrier for you to advance, but it makes sense because there’s been a lot of people dropping out,” Lew said. “I feel like it just depends on the person and how much you study for that class.”
Teachers and administrators have argued that after taking an online or summer class to skip courses, many students are caught off guard in the intense setting of an honors or AP math course. Furthermore, if they request level changes later in the school year or drop the class, their schedules are disrupted.
These drops also have larger negative effects on the school. Ginestet-Araki has taught various math classes at the school and has observed the impact of students moving from higher-level courses to standard ones.
For example, when students attempt to drop from Algebra 2 Honors to Algebra 2, class sizes in the regular class increase markedly, making it harder for teachers to provide the level of individual attention intended initially. With the new math policy, one of the school’s goals is to ensure there are at most 32 students in each class.
“It’s also hard to get a student caught up to make sure they know the material, but also make sure they know the style of your class,” Ginestet-Araki said. “They have to learn how to turn in homework and where to find resources all over again. If you, as a teacher, have to repeat that 20 times, then it can be difficult and take a lot of time.”
According to Louie, this testing change is one part in the School Plan for Student Achievement. The math placement policy aims to reduce student stress, one of the plan’s three goals, and combat the culture of “shopping for classes” or “trying honors” in the math course selection process.
“Students should never skip a level,” Ginestet-Araki said. “Students should listen to their teachers, and what every single teacher would recommend at Saratoga is that no student should skip a math class over the summer, without exception.”
