The Mission

We run surveys about questions that matter to our school and community.

Our goal is useful, reliable information for students, educators, and local newspapers.

Westlake High School — BAPS, the Beyond AP Statistics Club

BAPS is the Beyond AP Statistics Club at Westlake High School. We pick something people here care about, ask the people it affects, and share what we find, so students, teachers, and newspapers have information they can use and trust.¹

For our members, it’s a chance to use statistics and programming on real questions instead of textbook problems. For everyone else, it’s a clearer picture of what the people around them actually think.

The club is sponsored by Mrs. Chong, who is in her twentieth year of teaching and her fifteenth at Westlake.²

A past project

Test prep, straight from students

Education departments in our community came to us.

What they wanted to know: How students prepare for tests, and which online practice resources they use.
Why they came to us: They wanted to hear directly from students.

Distribution of responsesIllustration

Fig. 2 Illustrative only: the kind of chart a survey like this produces. This is not data from the test-prep survey.

“Real questions from our school and community, answered by the people they affect.”
— The kind of work BAPS exists to do

Looking ahead

What we want to ask next

We want our surveys to answer questions people here actually have.

Community questions

Ask community members what they want to know, and build a survey around it.

Newspapers

We already partner with The Featherduster, and want to find more stories where a survey could help.

Fig. 3 Decorative: the standard normal curve, a staple of every stats classroom.

In brief

Why it matters

For our school

Hearing from students shows educators what’s working and what students still need.

II.

For our community

Surveys give a voice to the people an issue affects.

III.

For our members

Real practice with statistics and programming, on real questions instead of textbook problems.

What we’ve learned

Incentives matter most for getting people to take part.

That’s what Mrs. Chong has found running BAPS. When more people take part, not just the ones with strong opinions, results have less bias and more fairly represent everyone.

Uncertainty vs. turnoutConcept

Fig. 4 Conceptual sketch, not data: the more people respond, the narrower the range of uncertainty around an estimate. That’s why participation matters so much.

For local organizations

Support BAPS

Two ways local organizations can help. Either one means a lot to us.

Option A

Help fund incentives

Any amount helps. Funding only pays for small thank-you incentives for people who take our surveys.

Option B

Share survey expertise

Feedback on how we design and run our surveys, from people who do it professionally.

With permission, we recognize supporters on our club shirts, our surveys, and this website.

Classifieds · Now recruiting

Join BAPS

Interested in statistics, programming, or just asking good questions? Come to a meeting.

When & where: Meeting time & room TBD
Contact: baps.westlake@example.com

I’m interested →

¹ See Methodology & independence for how we keep results trustworthy.
² See Our sponsor.
Figures 2–4 are illustrations, not survey results.