Brunswick High School recognized as one of top 50 CLEP high schools in the country

BRUNSWICK — Brunswick High School was recently recognized by the College Board as one of the top 50 College-Level Examination Program high schools for the 2024-25 school year in the country. The recognition goes to schools whose students earned the most college credits with the College-Level Examination Program. Last year, Brunswick High School students earned 474 college credits through the program, and Brunswick was the only high school in the state to be recognized. Brunswick Schools Director of Education and Innovation Pat Geschke said the College-Level Examination Program differs from Advanced Placement, which is also a College Board program. Any student can take a College-Level Examination Program exam to potentially earn college credit, unlike Advanced Placement, which requires students to be enrolled in an Advanced Placement class and take a test. "It aligns with our mission and our vision," he said. "We want all of our students to strive for excellence. We want to help them be prepared for our world through a rigorous curriculum, through meaningful relationships and through relevant experiences." Geschke said teachers came to him and asked if there were other ways to provide opportunities for students to earn college credit outside of advanced placement and College Credit Plus. "(The College-Level Examination Program) is accepted at like 2,900 colleges across the country, and in Ohio, a lot of them accept (College-Level Examination Program) credit," he said. "What we did was we designed classes to connect to Ohio standards as well as in preparation for the (College-Level Examination Program) exam." Brunswick High School students can now take a regular or a College-Level Examination Program version of sociology and psychology, Geschke said. The high-level classes for French, German and Spanish at Brunswick High School are now College-Level Examination Program courses as well. "We have a lot of kids enrolling in these classes," he said. "Kids who might not want to take an (Advanced Placement) class or (College Credit Plus), and we're giving them an opportunity to potentially earn college credit. It's been a huge hit." Teachers in the district are always looking for innovative ways to engage kids, Geschke said. He considers the program to be a "success story" for Brunswick City Schools. "Kids are interested in taking these classes," he said. "We feel strongly that we want to provide every kid with every opportunity to advance, to be successful. I think the more opportunities you can provide, the better experience it'll be for them, and I think that's one of the major reasons why we offer this at our high school." Contact reporter Madisyn Woodring at (330) 721-4049 or mwoodring@medina-gazette.com.