AP students have worked hard, and in a survey, more than 90% of students said they plan to test this year. вЂњThe AP Program has made decisions about this yearвЂ™s AP Exams that prioritize the health and safety of students and educators and give students the chance to earn college credit. Students deserve more.Д¬omments to Teen Vogue from Jerome White, the College BoardвЂ™s director of media relations: Yet the College Board has decided it is an appropriate time to proceed with business as usual. We are at the one-year anniversary of the confusion, disarray, economic turmoil, mass death, and decline of studentsвЂ™ emotional and physical health well-being wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Though that system had many of its own flaws, and standardized testing as it stands is an inequitable assessment of intelligence, the College Board has proven to be more than capable of adjusting test formats and requirements. Cancel all AP test fees this year, including refunds for those already charged.ДЇor what it is worth, the College Board made AP exams shorter and open-note last year to acknowledge the chaos created by the abrupt shift to online learning.Make all tests open-note and ensure that tests cover content found in accessible study materials.Do away with the current digital exam policy of being unable to return to previous questions.The message gained enough support for the College Board itself to comment on our post, claiming that вЂњto support Muslim students, no exams are being administered on May 13,вЂќ which doesnвЂ™t speak to the fact that Ramadan is a month-long observance.Дue to this repeated ignorance of marginalized students, we are calling on the College Board to: A student on our Instagram voiced similar frustration with the College Board ignoring the circumstances of Muslim students. The College Board isnвЂ™t adequately addressing its contribution to education inequity and is instead exacerbating it by not paying enough attention to student health during this pandemic.ДЄnother team member, Sabirah Mahmud, as an inner-city high-school senior from Philadelphia, voices concern about her experiences as a Muslim student who consistently has AP testing around Ramadan.В вЂњI had to take the AP European History exam while fasting, which inevitably impacted my ability to focus,вЂќ she explains. By enforcing strict testing guidelines, the College Board merely furthers the inequities in standardized testing even in a non-COVID world, we continue to see that marginalized students are less likely to accurately receive testing accommodations or have access to expensive test-prep courses. The pandemic has widened economic disparities and magnified existing socioeconomic barriers. Taking this into account, our demands specifically outline the disproportionate effects that remote learning has had on BIPOC students, low-income students, and students in difficult family situations. One of our team members, high-school senior Madeline Halteh, claims that she вЂњexperienced the effects of an inequitable online-testing system last year, and wouldnвЂ™t wish it upon anybody else.вЂќ Halteh brought up the problematic history of standardized testing, and particularly the College BoardвЂ™s SAT, which was created to measure and enforce ideas about racial superiority. Nonetheless, the College Board hasnвЂ™t appeared to account for the impacts that online school has had on studentsвЂ™ health, well-being, and learning. It seems redundant to point out that this school year has been anything but regular - our classes, at least, meet much less frequently, and for many, content has been difficult to digest virtually, and Zoom fatigue has been overwhelming. These students are often from low-income communities of color, further perpetuating education and health inequity.ДЄnother major problem with this yearвЂ™s exam is that the in-person exam is designed for a regular school year. Moreover, the College BoardвЂ™s digital requirements mean that students without proper technology would need to take in-person exams, putting them at higher risk for exposure to COVID-19. My math teacher said sheвЂ™d heard from other teachers that online classes often meet less than in-person ones, meaning preparation for this test presents many new challenges.

I have not seen my school campus since March 2020. For upwards of a year now, millions of students across the country have been in an environment antithetical to our learning.

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