BUFFALO TWP — For high school students in advanced placement (AP) classes, scoring well on the College Board’s end-of-the-year test for college credit can be quite nerve-racking. But all 16 students in AP World History at Freeport High School ended up scoring in the two highest categories.

The College Board, the national nonprofit that puts on the SAT and AP tests across the country, grades AP tests on a five-point scale, with scores of a 3 to 5 being considered passing scores.

However, if a student wants to receive college credit for the course, most colleges only accept scores of 4 or 5, according to Dave DiSanti, the teacher for Freeport’s AP World History class.

“The reason I used that as my personal benchmark is because almost all colleges accept a 4 or 5,” he said. “For me, my bull’s-eye is 4s and 5s.”

And while all of his students this year earned at least a 4, 62.5 percent of the class scored the highest, a 5. For comparison, in 2015, only 6.5 percent of students nationwide received a 5.

The AP class was one of four AP classes offered at the high school, according to Assistant Principal Don Consuegra. And while DiSanti’s class had 82 percent of his students receiving a 4 or 5 on the test, this level of success is simply “extraordinary,” Consuegra said.

“(The other AP classes) were successful, but I personally have never seen that kind of success anywhere,” he said. “(DiSanti) is a phenomenal teacher. He’s the kind of guy kids would walk through walls for.”

But according to DiSanti, the students are the ones who deserve the credit.

“I can’t help but feel like I’m more of a coach than a teacher,” DiSanti said. “There’s so much they have to do on their own. I can give them the skill set, but there’s so much tenacity (on their part).”

DiSanti’s teaching style — or coaching style — includes the traditional lecture but also has the students complete a number of less traditional assignments that teach them to analyze history. For an AP-level history class, students need to be able to “(see) how things are connected” rather than memorizing dates and event, he said.

The first assignment, which happened over the summer before the school year, required the students to read “Guns, Germs and Steel,” a book by Jared Diamond.

“(The assignment) helps the students look at history in a different way, looking at it from a global perspective, looking at it without strict chronology and, most importantly, looking at historical causation,” DiSanti said. “In this class, it’s not good enough to know what happened. You have to know why it happened.”

The class originally started with about 30 students, whittled down to 16 after the summer assignment and the first few weeks of school, DiSanti said.

But DiSanti harbors no hard feelings, he said: “The class isn’t for everybody. It’s a tremendous time commitment.”

For those who made it past the first few weeks, additional assignments pushed the students out of the usual academic comfort zone.

Soon-to-be senior Kevin Lynch said one regular student-driven project was something called a jigsaw. For each chapter, the students broke into groups and did presentations on some concept in the chapter, and this is something that really helped Lynch by “focusing in on the details.”

Another teaching method DiSanti uses to engage the students with the subject material is class debates. This year, the students debated on the legacy of the Mongols and the legacy of Christopher Columbus.

But it’s the final debate of the year that really sparks the students’ competitive drive, he said.

“The (assignment) that gets their blood pumping is we have a Most Influential Person in History competition,” DiSanti said. “We brainstorm one day, put all of the names on the board and have a draft. The students have one-on-one debates, bracket-style like March Madness.”

This year’s winner: Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.

And what happened in the class’s first year debate?

“I think Jesus beat Genghis Khan in the finals last year,” DiSanti said.

Brooke Arner, who also will be a senior this fall, said when DiSanti did need to give a traditional lecture, it was always entertaining.

“He makes everything seem like it’s a story instead of just telling the facts,” she said. “None of us wanted to leave class.”

Lynch also said that DiSanti treats history like an exciting story instead of a textbook with just dates and facts.

“Probably my favorite thing (about the class) was just (DiSanti’s) storytelling,” Lynch said. “He told the best stories, and he made history as interesting as possible and as entertaining as possible in the short amount of time we had.”

Arner and Lynch both think that DiSanti deserves credit for being such an effective, engaging teacher, they said.

“I learned the most out of any class I’ve ever taken out of this course,” Arner said. “I didn’t even like history, but I really wanted to challenge myself so I gave it a try. Mr. DiSanti was really the one who let me learn how to love history. Without his preparation, none of us would have been able to get 4s and 5s. He’s just an incredible teacher.”

But for DiSanti, it’s the students who did the work and, therefore, they deserve the ultimate credit.

“These kids worked hard and they really did something special,” he said. “I’m just so proud of them. They worked so tenaciously and to see them rewarded like this is just great.”

Consuegra said the news did not come as much of a surprise to him.

“I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not,” he said. “That’s the kind of kids you have here. They push themselves and our teachers push them just as hard as they need to be. Last year, (DiSanti) did very well. He did very well this year. I can’t see that changing.”