Student, parent tell Waukegan board counselors discouraged AP enrollment at Joaquin Brookside; district says it will look into concerns

A student and a parent told the Waukegan CUSD 60 board during public comment that school counselors discouraged students from taking Advanced Placement classes and that at least one family was asked to sign a form that warned the school would not be responsible if a student failed.

"My counselor told my mom that she had to sign a paper saying that if I wanna take the class, I wanna be able to get out of it," said Max Garanda, introduced as an incoming sophomore at Joaquin High School, Brookside Campus. Garanda said he nonetheless took AP Human Geography, earned an A in the second semester and felt the class benefited him academically.

A parent who followed Garanda described being asked to sign a similar document and said counselors discouraged students from taking AP courses, citing GPA impact. The parent said a student was scared out of taking AP despite being "a straight A student with a good pre-SAT score." The parent also raised an incident during an AP statistics exam at the Washington campus where senior celebration music was audible, saying, "there shouldn't be any distractions during this time. The school should be more organized."

Board members and the superintendent responded briefly during the meeting. One board member said, "Superintendent, I assume we're gonna have someone look into that," and the superintendent acknowledged the comment; the meeting record shows no formal action or directive beyond that assurance.

Context and next steps: the remarks were made during the public comment portion of a budget workshop. Board and administration members indicated they would follow up; the transcript records a board member explicitly asking that the issue be investigated. No timeline or named investigator was provided on the record.