Verona High School has received the College Board’s 2019 Female Diversity Award for AP Computer Science Principles.
The award recognizes schools that reached 50% or higher female participation in either of the two AP computer science courses–AP Computer Science Principles and AP Computer Science A– or whose percentage of female AP comp sci test takers met or exceeded that of the school’s female population in 2019. Out of 20,000 institutions that offer AP courses, only 818 met the diversity award criteria.
And VHS really met it: Verona’s female participation in AP Computer Science Principles was 64% in 2019, which exceeds the female percentage of the overall student body.
VHS has had AP Computer Science Principles since 2016-2017, when it was first released to high schools by the College Board. The course was built and introduced at VHS by Danielle Mutovic, who recently left the school to become director of technology at Paramus Catholic High School.
According to Rich Wertz, who heads comp sci teaching at VHS, for the past 10 years, female participation in the other computer science course, AP Computer Science A, has been 34% at VHS, while it has been 22% for all of New Jersey. In 2019, female participation in both AP computer science courses was 46%, while it was 30% for all of New Jersey.
