She didn’t believe it at first. “I didn’t even know that was achievable,” she said. 

Giovanna Caballero achieved the unachievable, becoming one of only 308 students in the world to earn a perfect score on the AP Drawing Exam. Among her art utensils? A ten-dollar wooden analog clock from Walmart. 

“Cheapest thing I could find,” the senior said.

Giovanna has always been passionate about art. “It was something I always loved doing early on. Growing up, my dad used to draw in front of me and do all sorts of projects around the house.” But, “I didn’t start taking [it] seriously until middle school.” And when high school came along, she had entered the path to perfecting her craft.

“She has been with me for two years,” said AP 2-D Art & Design teacher Ms. Lorraine Vasquez. “She worked in a way to really plan things out and have her ideas ironed out, and she made an effort [to] know what she was doing [so] that then she could take the time and put all the details [together] and execute.”

Indeed, the College Board doesn’t just look at the art itself. “They want to see your process creating it, so like revisions, practicing, and experimenting,” explained Caballero. 

With that, Giovanna produced a piece worth far more than the ten dollars she put in. 

“My theme was aging through surrealism, so I did one about babies and toddlers.” Giovanna first drew the faces of a woman in a circular fashion—with each face growing older and older as they rounded the paper—before inserting the sheet into the clock. “I had to disassemble it and put it back together,” she said. 

And out came a work of art College Board deemed priceless. The finished product displayed a sort of circular timeline where the faces developed from infancy into adolescence, adulthood, and eventually old age; it was as if she had constructed a time machine. 

Giovanna also drew a second piece, this time focusing on “insecurity over [one’s] appearance.” In it was another woman, whose face was touched, stretched, and manipulated into an indistinguishable form.

In total, Giovanna submitted 15 items—ten artworks and five separate images that showed her brainstorming process. Once AP had awarded her the perfect 5, the news spread within no time.

What was your reaction to the news?

“I had found out during school, so I didn’t tell my mom immediately. I just forwarded the email,” Giovanna said, who received the message late September. “By the time I got home she already told everyone we knew; they were emotional!” 

“Super excited for her,” Ms. Vasquez said. “What an amazing thing to put on her resume. [I’m] really happy all her hard work—which you know you see when people [stay] beyond the class time—[has] all paid off. It’s an awesome accomplishment for her.”

Giovanna’s achievement is the first in Pembroke Pines Charter’s history. “I can remember, of course, a lot of students getting fives and getting AP Scholar Awards but as far as a perfect score, I can’t remember anyone getting a perfect score,” Principal Bayer said. 

It probably won’t be the last.

In Charter’s 26th year of operation, the senior paints a new picture of artistic accolade, continuing the school’s legacy of academic excellence. “[We have] actual students that have come here, got a great education, and regardless of their background or socioeconomic status or ethnicity, they have succeeded,” Bayer said.  

Even with the rigor of AP courses.

An AP exam is one that calls for much planning, preparation, and help. After an exam is over, many students feel that a weight has been lifted off their shoulders. When results begin to stream in, students share their scores and celebrate all the hard work they put into the course. 

On October 4th, the high school was met with more achievement. The College Board awarded Charter for the 2023 AP School Honor Roll for developing an AP program that gets students ready for college classes and allows them to earn college credits. PPCHS received the Silver recognition on the Honor Roll, meaning the school met a significant percentage of each criteria. These include College Culture, College Credit, and College Optimization, describing the percentage of students who took an AP exam at any point, the percentage of students who scored a 3+ on any exam, and the percentage of students who took five or more APs, respectively (more information here).

The awards range from bronze to platinum. Last year, 63% of seniors took at least one AP exam, 47% of seniors scored a 3 or higher, and 12% took five or more AP exams in high school, earning Charter a Silver (63%) and two Golds (47% and 12%). To have received Gold recognition, every category had to be Gold. Still, it takes a lot of behind the scenes work from the teachers and students to even score a Silver.

One thing that plays a big role for these intense classes is keeping the mindset high. AP World History teacher, Mr. Garcia, always gives a lecture on, “setting a high bar for my students. Setting those high expectations!” 

Other teachers have found over the course of teaching that it’s all about the effort they are willing to put into these types of classes and how far they believe they can go from what they have learned over the years. AP Language teacher, Ms. Sunshine Phelps, believes what works best is “being able to do at least one practice mock exam where they sit for three hours and 15 minutes and they take the test as if it’s the real test.” 

Pines Charter was also rewarded the AP Access Award. This honor is dedicated to schools that go the extra mile to ensure that their AP courses are equally accessible for students of different backgrounds and financial situations. Principal Bayer was especially proud of this award, “Because you need just as many underprivileged and financially needy kids to score … as everybody else. And that’s not happening at some private schools.”

When the administration and staff get this kind of empowering feedback, it allows the teachers to grow with their classes and really find ways to get the curriculum across to the students in a unique way.

Now that the achievements have been released, it’s up to the students of tomorrow to decide whether Pembroke Pines Charter keeps that bar high. “That says a lot about the kind of school we are and the climate we have.”

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