Advanced Placement Courses Cast Wider Net

The Advanced Placement program at Sharpstown High School has long been viewed as a haven for top students in the school’s magnet leadership learning community. Most of the Houston school’s other students—a majority of them poor and members of racial or ethnic minorities—did not consider the rigorous, college-level courses an option.

Principal David Kendler and his staff at the 1,700-student school are working to change those perceptions. On the heels of a new plan by the district to expand AP participation, Sharpstown High officials this year are steering more students into such courses and sending out a message to the entire student body: The program “is accessible and attainable and something that [most] kids can do,” Mr. Kendler said.

“Most students,” he said, “didn’t view themselves as AP material before, … but now...