ACCESS

ACCESS (Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators and Students Statewide) was established by the Alabama Department of Education. ACCESS provides a medium for high school students in Alabama's public schools to take classes not offered at their own high schools. Students can take AP courses (which follow the AP curriculum,) electives, foreign language, or upper-level core courses. ACCESS has two 'modes of delivery:' web-based instruction and IVC (videoconferencing.) Web-based instruction is usually asynchronous so the student typically works at their own pace, and IVC is usually synchronous with two-way video and audio for the students and teacher to have class at the same time.

To register for these classes, the students have to go through their counselor first. The counselor then registers the students. ACCESS typically takes place in an ACCESS lab which is set up for both web-based and videoconferencing instruction.

I found ACCESS to be a very innovative way to level the playing field for students in Alabama. Before ACCESS was developed, Alabama rated 14th out of 16 Southern states offering AP courses. I went to a very populous school for the South (Gulfport High School) which had almost 1800 students (9-12) the year I graduated, and so almost every course offered through ACCESS was offered. I could not imagine not being offered classes like AP Calculus, AP U.S. Government, or Psychology. ACCESS is very helpful for students who are interested in courses not offered at their school.