Mountain View-Los Altos (MVLA) High School District students posted strong results on Advanced Placement exams in 2026, while trustees questioned differences in AP participation, course access and workload among students and between the district’s two high schools at a Sept. 28 meeting.
District students took 6,141 AP exams in May, with 93% earning a score of three or higher; AP scores of three or higher can qualify students for college credit, depending on the institution. Since 2021, the number of AP exams earning a three or higher has increased 66%, while district enrollment declined 2%. Over the same period, the number of students taking AP exams increased 19%, while the total number of exams taken rose 45%.
In 2026, 76% of exams earned a four or five, compared with 59% in 2021. The share earning a one or two fell from 19% in 2021 to 7% in 2026, according to the presentation.
Among Latino students, the AP success rate increased from about 59% in 2021 to 80% in 2026, while the number of exams taken rose from 408 to 633. Associate Superintendent of Educational Services Teri Faught, who presented the results, cautioned that smaller groups can produce less reliable statistical comparisons.
Trustee Alex Levich noted that while overall AP participation had increased 19% over six years, the percentage of Latino students participating in AP increased by 1%. She also pointed to low participation among Latinos students in AP math and computer science courses, including 6% in AP Calculus and 2% in AP Computer Science. Levich said the district should look at potential barriers to expanding participation, including prerequisites for advanced math courses.
Faught said staff have discussed a summer math program, including geometry, to help students meet prerequisites for AP Calculus, but paused the idea because of other summer program demands; she said it could be revisited.
The board also discussed the increasing number of AP courses some students are taking. Among students taking AP exams, the average was 2.8 exams per student in 2026. Faught said counselors were not encouraging large AP loads; instead, students have told staff that peer pressure can influence those decisions.
“We want to be able to support them with understanding what a manageable, sustainable workload looks like,” Faught said. “It’s not the college counselors encouraging a large number of AP. In fact, they say the opposite … it often is driven by peer pressure.”
Student representatives said they would not favor capping AP courses, but acknowledged that some students face significant pressure.
Trustees also questioned differences between the high schools. From 2021 to 2026, the number of AP students at Mountain View increased 24%, compared with 14% at Los Altos. The number of AP exams increased 59% at Mountain View and 32% at Los Altos, while exams earning a three or higher increased 89% and 46%, respectively. Levich asked whether counseling, prerequisites, course availability or other systemic factors could help explain the difference. Faught said the averages do not establish causation but could help sites and teachers identify and share practices.
Trustee Vadim Katz requested anonymized AP results by classroom and teacher to examine differences in outcomes and the potential influence of outside tutoring. The board also discussed differences between classroom grades and AP exam scores, the gap between the percentage of students earning A’s or B’s in AP Seminar and those earning a five on the AP exam, which narrowed from 44 percentage points to 29 points. Faught said the district has course-level data that can be used to compare classroom grades with AP results.
