ACCESS LABS

ACCESS LABS
By the Fall of 2009, all Mobile County and Baldwin County high schools will have state-sponsored distance-learning labs.
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The distance learning program, known as ACCESS (Alabama Connecting Classrooms,
Educators and Students Statewide), allows students at one school to take classes offered atother schools on the Internet.

Some schools, which already have partial labs, will receive $50,000 apiece to install equipment to have a full lab this fall.
Baldwin County schools will get as much as $85,000 to install labs . The state education budget has been cut by hundreds of millions,
which includes the loss of some teaching and other positions in Mobile and Baldwin counties.

Bryant High, Citronelle, Montgomery and Satsuma are high schools in Mobile that have added the distance learning labs along with Daphne and
Robertsdale in Baldwin County.

According to Cathy Malone, Lab Coordinator at Mary Montgomery high school, students at MGM are excited and enthusiastic while
participating in the ACCESS program and are receiving valuable benefits that will reflect their future

The state wants all of its 371 of its high schools connected to ACCESS by 2011 with about 190 schools remaining to be furnished.

Students will be able to take courses offered across town at other schools

All of the 13 high schools in Mobile will have the same bell schedules so that classes will begin and end at the same times.

All students are required to take at least one distance learning class in high school and students are enrolled in the advanced diploma track, which means they must take advanced math and some foreign language classes. Along with the advanced classes, students will also be able to take remediation classes to help
them graduate.