Teachers grade exams over summer break

By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

High school AP teachers, from left, Debra Grepperud, Chad McGee and Nancy McNeal were selected from among their high school and collegiate peers to score rigorous AP exams earlier this summer. (Will Stewart photo)

The three best things about being a teacher, many of them will tell you, are June, July and August. And any attempts to get them anywhere near a classroom during the summer months will be met with fierce resistance.

But three Warren County High School advanced placement teachers – Debra Grepperud, Chad McGee and Nancy McNeal – actually applied to spend a week of their precious vacation doing nothing but scoring advanced placement examinations in their respective subjects.

The advanced placement, or AP, program is sponsored by the College Board and gives capable students the opportunity to take rigorous college-level courses and exams while still in high school. Should students pass their respective end-of-course AP exams, they receive college credit at most colleges and universities across the country.

For Grepperud, who teaches AP art history, and McNeal, who teaches AP physics, this year marked the first they helped score the exams. This marked the second year for McGee, who teaches AP American history.

While scoring free response questions, essays, and written problems seven-and-a-half hours a day for seven days straight, all the while being monitored themselves for accuracy and consistency, might not sound like fun to most, the three said they would do it again without hesitation.

“I loved it,” said McNeal, whose week was spent at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. “I’ll go back every year they ask me back. It was the best professional development experience I’ve ever had.”

Grepperud, who scored exams at the University of New Jersey at Trenton, said she enjoyed meeting her high school and university art history colleagues from across the country.

While the three all enjoyed their time scoring exams, and were compensated monetarily, the most direct beneficiaries of their experiences will be their students.

Having scored thousands of exams, the teachers now have a better idea of what graders look for and can teach their subjects accordingly.