The Maine Department of Education (DOE) and the University of Maine at Fort Kent (UMFK) are pleased to announce a partnership for the statewide AP4ALL program.
In its tenth year running, the AP4ALL program has become increasingly popular among high school students throughout the state by offering the opportunity to take Advanced Placement (AP) courses, completely online, regardless of where they live or their school’s ability to support AP courses.
With experience and resources from their own Rural U early college program, UMFK will be administering all of the AP4ALL courses for the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 school years. The shift will help to improve the quality and outcomes of the program by offering students additional resources including new course software and management platforms, as well as digital texts and other classroom materials. In addition, the partnership will allow for expanded class sizes for popular courses, improved retention rates, and increased opportunity to reach rural students.
In order for this first year to be successful, information was reviewed from prior years to help create a list of course offerings that will better serve students. While the number of different courses offered has decreased, more spots have been created for courses that students previously wanted but couldn’t get into due to class size limits. The list was created based on many criteria, some of which included: course availability and need across Maine, prior enrollment, current retention and success rates for students, and the ability to transfer credits, subject knowledge, and skills into future higher education opportunities.
See the full listing of 2017/2018 courses on UMFK’s website.
In the first year of the pilot partnership, the previously available dual enrollment opportunities will be put on hold to ensure a smooth transition with available resources. Students interested in other early college opportunities can visit Maine DOE’s website to see a listing of other programs that are being offered around the state.
As the partnership grows, steps will be taken to continually evaluate the program in order to ensure the success of online learning, and to assess the quality of the programming. The evaluation will not only facilitate the growth of the AP4ALL program, but will also provide information that will help inform changes and decision making about AP courses and online learning more generally.
For questions or more information, contact Amanda Nguyen, Digital Learning Specialist for Maine Department of Education at 207-624-6656 or amanda.nguyen@maine.gov.