News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The state’s AP All Access program celebrating its third year and one local educator said the program is a huge success.
AP All Access provides free virtual AP classes to schools that cannot overcome the financial pressures of offering AP courses on their own. Every county in the Upper Cumberland is a part of the program. Livingston Academy AP All Access Liaison Nate Kennard said the program helps get students ready for college.
“These kids get to take the class for free,” Kennard said. “They get a high-level teacher that gets to teach them, you know give them the feedback that they need. Then they get their test taken care of. They get it taken care of financially. And so its giving that opportunity for all schools, all students to be involved with something at a very high academic level.”
Kennard said normally each AP test you take costs around $100. Under the AP All Access program it is free. The number of students statewide taking AP courses increased 77 percent during the programs second year.
Kennard is also a teacher with the program, so he teaches an AP U.S. History Class in person at Livingston Academy and another one online for students across the state.
“AP All Access is a little different, whenever I teach that class, its more of the feedback that I give,” Kennard said. “They have modules they go through and a lot of reading they have to do. These students are handpick from administration and guidance and things like that and are able to handle a lot of self motivation and time management, because they do a lot of the work on their own. Then when they do those assignments that’s whenever I get those and then read through those and give them the feedback they need to move forward.”
Kennard said the program has constantly been improving.
“The communication is done very well through the state, through the teachers, and these liaisons,” Kennard said. “There’s multiple people you can contact for multiple things. They’ve done a really good job of opening that up so this runs really really smooth.”
The Tennessee Department of Education runs the program in partnership with the Niswonger Foundation. The Niswonger Foundation initially applied for the grant from the state to get AP All Access started.
“It’s a great program for kids especially if they are at a school that don’t have that AP teacher on hand that they’re able to get that kind of level of teaching, that level of class,” Kennard said. “It not for everybody, but there were students getting left out all the time.”
