Advanced Placement results, school budget final accounting, Trueblood/Janeway house restoration

Updates for past columns:

--The record 3,647 Advanced Placement tests administered in May at the four comprehensive high schools in the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District earned an 86 percent “pass” rate, considerably higher than the 64 percent California and 61 percent global results.

Passing is a score of three or better on a five-point scale, although individual universities make their own decisions on awarding credit for scores on the 34 subject tests AP offers. About 370,000 tests were administered in California and nearly 4.5 million globally.

The number of tests administered and “pass” percentages at district campuses were 570 and 82 percent at El Dorado; 657 and 84 percent at Esperanza; 1,493 and 87 percent at Valencia; and 927 and 91 percent at Yorba Linda.

Even better results were reported for the International Baccalaureate program at Valencia High School, where 336 tests achieved a passing score of four or higher on a seven-point scale out of 348 tests administered, for a 97 percent “pass” rate.

Coordinator Fred Jenkins told me 41 of 43 senior candidates earned IB's Full Diploma for 2015, and 71 seniors are on track to earn the Full Diploma in 2016. He stated the program this year has 101 juniors, 143 sophomores and 189 freshmen--”our largest freshman class ever.”

IB has awarded 1.3 million Full Diplomas in 140 countries, with nearly 142,000 students taking the tests earlier this year. The next IB tests will be administered April 29 - May 13, 2016, while AP tests are scheduled May 2 -13, 2016.

--School district officials have closed the financial books on the 2014-15 fiscal year, with a report filed with the county Department of Education. The “unaudited actuals” report noted

the district's expenditures exceeded revenues by $331,908.

Fortunately, the district has healthy reserves – considered healthy for schools, that is. This fiscal year began with some $16 million on hand, with more than $11 million “designated for economic uncertainties,” representing 5 percent of last year's outlays of more than $220 million.

About 84 percent of expenses went to salaries and benefits. Most revenue (some $180 million) came from the state's new Local Control Funding Formula that provides a base amount for average daily attendance supplemented by grants tied to student demographics.

--Steady progress continues regarding the city-owned Trueblood/Janeway house at Lemon Drive and Park Avenue. The historic two-story home east of the post office and visible from Imperial Highway is again open to rehabilitation plans.

The city is reissuing a request for proposals that includes invitations to prior organizations that submitted offers in 2010, asking groups “to consider a partnership with the city to rehabilitate” the home and “allow for sale of the property to an interested party with certain conditions and constraints to renovate the home to historic standards.”