The infamous “Snowpocalypse” forced Montgomery County students to miss a week of instructional time, and AP teachers at WJ have been and will continue to plan for the consequences.


 With AP tests fast approaching in May, teachers and students are scrambling to get prepared.

AP Statistics teacher Mary Lafratta is not particularly worried about the loss of time because of the nature of her class, in that a true statistics class in college is one semester long and she has a whole year to work with.  However, she has made small adjustments, such as eliminating a quiz. Student will not get as much in class preparation before the AP test.

“We will still finish curriculum but will only have one week to review,” she said. “We usually have two.”

AP National, State and Local Government teacher Steve Miller, who teaches APEX freshmen, will be teaching his classes at a faster pace. Some activities did have to be omitted for time’s sake.

“The Supreme Court Simulation will be pushed back until after the AP Test,” he said.

AP Physics B teacher Mark Whipple finds himself sacrificing some parts of his curriculum, such as demonstrations, to make way for the AP test. Whipple is, however, planning on making up the content missed through classwork, and not on extra outside assignments.

“The kids in my AP classes are probably taking a lot of other APs [and] I didn’t see any point in overloading them,” he said.

According to Miller, APEX freshmen will “prepare themselves,” although he is more concerned for his AP Macro and Micro Economics classes. There is insufficient time to allow students to generate and present their own AP practice questions, like he has done in previous years. The snow did not plan for the work ethic of most second semester seniors.

“Class time is really important because students do not do a lot of work outside of the instruction period,” he said.

Lafratta is also having to battle with senioritis.

“It’s the end of the year and seniors don’t like to do a lot of work outside of school,” she said. “This year I will have to ask them to do a lot outside of school. I have never had to ask seniors to do so much so close to graduation.”

AP United States History teacher Nathan Schwartz planned ahead for the snow, instructing students to read the next chapter in their textbooks. He, like most other teachers, is battling against time when determining lesson plans. He is, however, saying it’s not the time to panic.

“We missed a week,” he said. “It’s not the end of the world.”

STEFANY CARTY CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT