ACCESS Lab at Satsuma High School

Today, Crystal, Joye, and I visited the ACCESS Lab at Satsuma High School in Satsuma, Alabama. The facilitator of this lab is Ms. Jennifer Phillips. She was very friendly and ready to answer any of the many questions that we asked.From what Ms. Phillips said, we were not the first group of eager observers to ooh and ahh over the lab.

Currently, students take their classes online, much like a collegiate online course. They do not utilize live web feeds at this time. Next semester, however; classes will be taught from the Satsuma High School ACCESS Lab. Right now, the lab is used during all four class blocks with classes including English 12, Creative Writing, Latin, German, and Environmental Science. Not all of the students who are in the lab at the same time are taking the same course. In the lab block that we visited, students were taking Creative Writing and Latin, among other courses. The students who take the language courses must use a microphone attached to their computer in order to complete their coursework.Students are assigned a computer with a number for the entire school year. That is the only ACCESS computer that they will use.

Some students only take one class via ACCESS but there is one student who is taking three classes through the ACCESS lab. Students may work at their own pace, somewhat, since the online teacher has set firm deadlines that are strictly enforced. Students may do their coursework from school or at home during non-school hours. Students may not do their tests or quizzes from home. Students have a only one log-in chance to complete a quiz so they must be sure that they have adequate time left in class to finish the quiz. Most of the online tests can be taken over the course of a day or two with multiple log-in times allowed.
Starting next year, all incoming freshmen will be required to take one class through the ACCESS lab before they graduate. Student reception is varied, with some students thoroughly enjoying the program and others not being so keen on the lab. Student grades vary from A to E currently in the Satsuma lab. Ms. Phillips said that the reason for the worse grades is due to a lack of student motivation. Students can only be told so much to do their work. Whether or not they actually do their work is up to the individual student. Ms. Phillips did say that overall, ACCESS is a success at Satsuma and that students' grades in their ACCESS classes closely correspond with their grades in the regular classroom.
In order to become an ACCESS teacher, one must be a certified teacher and be hired by ACCESS, not by the school or school district and earn about three hundred dollars per student enrolled in their ACCESS class. ACCESS facilitators must be at least school aides and many librarians and library aides are ACCESS facilitators. At Satsuma High School, some ACCESS blocks are taught in the ACCESS lab and some are taught in the library. Ms. Phillips has been the facilitator at Satsuma High School since about the third week of this semester. The facilitator's main job is being sure that students behave and that the grades are turned in to the school counselor's office for progress reports and report cards. There is also a "rolling lab" that classroom teachers may check-out of the ACCESS lab to use in their regular classes.
All in all, I think that ACCESS is a great program and I can see where in many areas, it has the potential to be very successful. Not only does it offer a wide array of classes to students in areas that those classes would not normally be taught but it also allows students to have more of a choice in the classes that they take. When students are given choices, they will more than likely respond better to the course material. The students at Satsuma High School seemed to be enjoying their time in their class and appear to be well on their way to join the world of collegiate online classes. I'm not sure that I, as an elementary education major, could use ACCESS as much but perhaps for some of the music class, ACCESS would be useful. I know that funding is tight and that music teachers are rare. If there was an ACCESS teacher who taught general music, chorus, or maybe even some sort of instrument, students could learn even more skills. Music is a passion of mine and I would love to see many students touched by music. I think ACCESS could help achieve this goal.