(CA High School English) Counselors are telling our students that "Senior year should be a year to take a break." Advice?

The counselors are advising our juniors--all of them, regardless of ability--not to take AP classes, especially AP English, during senior year because "it should be the easiest year of your life". I am outraged, but would like to find data and reliable sources to put together a response. There are plenty of sources saying that taking rigorous classes looks better for college, but I'm trying to find some which specifically address "backsliding" in the transcript. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!