Advanced Placement [AP] course scores for Toll Gate and Pilgrim high schools are being viewed as a validation that teachers taught and students performed well even though they didn’t return to the classroom this academic year after the March shutdown.

Toll Gate and Pilgrim students performed especially well compared to their peers statewide, earning them college credits that can place them on the path to a degree with a jump-start and a financial savings.

Toll Gate offers 16 AP classes. In 11 of those courses, students out-scored the state average. In 10, they surpassed the global average.

At Pilgrim, where seven AP courses are offered, students out performed the state and global averages in all but one subject – physics.

“It reaffirms for me the direction we’re going,” said an elated Candace Caluori, Toll Gate’s principal, in an interview Tuesday. She said the scores show the school is putting students on the path to college and a career. Also, she said it is proof that students adjusted to distance learning and that both teachers and students “dug in through coronavirus.”

She said guidance department chair Regina Wilkinson and staff of four counselors did an “incredible job.”

“Our AP students are outperforming their peers in other districts in the state and globally,” said William McCaffrey, director of secondary education. “The teachers and students are working very hard and we are seeing positive results in Warwick.”

Caluori explained in order to earn a college credit, students need to score a 3 out of a possible 5 on the examination. She said that 32 of the 130 Toll Gate students who took the exams scored a perfect 5. Students can take AP courses, which in the case of Toll Gate include calculus to computer science principles, macroeconomics, physics, U.S. history, English and U.S. government and politics, in their junior and senior. And while AP gives students a jump on college, Caluori advises them not to overload themselves. She thought most students electing to take AP took one or two courses.

Gerald Habershaw, Pilgrim’s principal, could not be reached for comment.