The ACCESS Program

The ACCESS initiative (Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators, and Students Statewide) is a program that provides high-quality courses through the internet. These courses are taught by state-certified teachers. The courses offered in this program are available to low-income and rural schools that are unable to provide higher level courses or advanced diplomas. Equal access to course is given to all students. Since all of these courses are only available online, the ACCESS program provides computers and other equipment to the schools that have labs. A significant amount of money is given to every school in the ACCESS program in order to fund equipment and support to students and teachers. The biggest plus of the program is that students are given the opportunity to take courses that are not offered at their schools.

Teachers who take part in the ACCESS program have the unique opportunity to reach out to students in other regions. These teachers are board-certified and are given intense training to ensure they are capable of presenting the subject and helping students succeed. This is achieved by requiring that all ACCESS teachers go through training. This training not only covers how to run a distant learning course, but also how to operate the technology that will be used in the course. Aside from the formal training, teachers may also attend workshops and professional development meetings. Help with videoconferencing and equipment is also available. Teachers are compensated according to how many half credits they teach. These resources allow teachers to not only improve themselves professionally, but also to reach out to students they would otherwise not have to opportunity to teach.