District will weight only AP courses next year to comply with Act 95; board vows broader review

The Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District on Dec. 16 told the Board of Education it will limit grade weighting this coming year to Advanced Placement courses, a change made to comply with Wisconsin’s Act 95.

Presenters said the district will assign a weighting value of 5 to any Advanced Placement course taken by current ninth-, tenth- and eleventh-graders; the change will be effective after the district rolls over Infinite Campus in July. A presenter said this will not affect current seniors’ transcripts. “It will not have any effect on the current seniors,” the presenter said.

Superintendent Dana Minogue told the board the district is implementing the change because it is required by statute: “This was not something that we willingly are choosing to implement. It's in reaction to Act 95,” she said.

Board members pressed for additional review and warned of potential unintended consequences. Members raised concerns that weighting only AP courses could encourage students to overload on APs to the detriment of other career and technical education or elective pathways. One board member said the change risks creating competitive pressure and could devalue project-based or technical pathways that better suit some students.

Administrators said they will return with a more detailed plan for future years and consider caps, broader definitions of rigor, and whether to involve parents and students in the development process. The district said it has consulted legal counsel and is waiting for additional guidance from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction before final decisions beyond this narrow compliance step.

Ending: The board received the update as informational and asked staff to develop options for further board review; no vote was required to adopt the limited AP weighting described for next year.