Greetings from European PTA!
Please let me begin by saying
THANK YOU
for your advocacy efforts on behalf of our military kids! Over 100,000 people have seen European PTA's action alerts via
social media
and
email
over the last few days, with thousands of you sharing them and also reaching out to the College Board directly to advocate for equitable testing times for our students overseas. We truly appreciate everything you've done to help us reach a fair resolution for our DoDEA students in Europe and the Pacific!
As soon as we were made aware of the insane testing times that our students overseas face on the College Board's 2020 Advanced Placement testing schedule, European PTA started the advocacy process with a
letter of concern
to the College Board on April 9, 2020. Unfortunately, the College Board
responded
on April 14, 2020 with a refusal to provide equitable testing times for our military kids
(you can read more about their response and European PTA's official rebuttal in our latest
press release
)
. This callous inaction on the part of the College Board is simply not acceptable, so we need to continue to take action and speak up for change!
Per their
bylaws
, the College Board is committed to providing "access and equity for all students." The AP testing options that are currently offered for our students overseas may be an attempt at accomodation in this unique situation, but they simply do not rise to the level of equity. EPTA strongly encourages the College Board to honor that stated commitment to access and equity by reversing their insistence on one universal testing window for this year’s AP exams so that they can offer truly equitable testing options for our students overseas, and we hope that you will encourage them to do so as well.
According to the College Board’s information on
Taking AP Exams Online
, most exams this year will have one or two free-response questions that will be offered in an open book format. With nearly a month before the beginning of the eleven day Advanced Placement testing period, it should not be insurmountable for the College Board to provide one or two separate but equal questions for the 32 exams listed on the online exam schedule for use at an alternate time for overseas students! Therefore, we encourage our members and community stakeholders around the world to continue to reach out to the College Board to request an equitable solution for our military kids. You can do this in several ways:
- Reach out to The College Board directly via the email addresses below or via phone at 212-632-1780 to share your concerns about online testing times for U.S. students living overseas. Tell them how this discrepancy in time zones will impact your students and others like them when they're already operating in unorthodox conditions due to COVID-19 and ask them to be true to their commitment to access and equity for all students.
- Trevor Packer, Senior Vice President of Advanced Placement and College Readiness: [email protected]
- Tweet about it using @CollegeBoard, @APforStudents, and @AP_Trevor and the hashtags #PTATakesAction and #EquityOverseas.
- Share this action alert with your schools, your communities, your elected officials, and your friends and family members around the world so that they can add their voices as well! We have posts on Facebook and Twitter that are ready to share in just a click.
- Add your name to this petition that asks The College Board to allow separate start times for students living overseas.
Online AP testing begins on Monday, May 11th, so we need you to take action today in the hope that we can find an equitable resolution for our overseas students. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me via
email
if you have any questions or if you receive a response that you'd like to share. Any assistance that you can give us in our advocacy efforts would be greatly appreciated!
Sincerely,
Kris Garst
European PTA Vice President for Legislation
