I have no issue with freshman taking AP classes for which they are qualified and which are part of the departments curriculum flow. At most schools that allow it, it means honors students for courses like AP Human Geography or AP World History. For a public school, unless it is one where enrollment is based on examination results, I see no validity to having an entire grade take an AP course, particularly 9th grade. As I have said numerous times on this site, in theory, AP exams are supposed to be equivalent to introductory college courses, and while a very small minority of kids are ready for that challenge in the 9th grade, they are the exception. And don’t get me started on my opinions of courses like AP Seminar, APHG, etc being equivalent to college courses.