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Watertown Public Schools At-a-Glance
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The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) tracks the percentage of high school students who complete 1 or more “advanced” courses. These courses include College Board AP Courses in all subject areas, advanced Project Lead the Way Coureses, math courses after Algebra 2 (like pre-calc and statistics), and other rigorous courses as defined by the state.
At WHS, 56.5% of 11th and 12th graders completed 1 or more advanced courses. While most subject areas have fluctuated a small amount, math has seen a small but steady decrease in enrollments.
MassCore is a recommended set of courses for Massachusetts high school students that is the minimum requirement for applying to state colleges and universities. In the last two years, Watertown has been making adjustments to the graduation requirements for high school to better align with this recommended program of study.
In the last two years, WHS has worked to increase enrollment in College Board AP courses. These are classes that students can take in high school, and earn college credit if they get a passing score of 3, 4, or 5 on the exam.
In 2026, 32.7% of 10-12th graders at WHS (177 students) were taking 1 or more AP courses. This is a 63% increase since 2022.
Even with increased enrollment, students are doing well. In 2025, 79% of AP exam scores were 3 or more, and 21.4% were the highest score of 5.
In 2025, students took 27 different AP courses.