Our school does not offer AP courses and does not require AP tests. A few courses teach close to the AP curriculum and tell students that they’d be mostly prepared for the AP test at the end of the course. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to say teachers encouraged taking the AP tests.
FWIW - our son is sticking with having taken only 1 AP test (calc). He’s not going to pivot and try to add to his application a group of test scores that are not aligned with his schools curriculum (which is stated in the info that goes to colleges).