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AHS students can take online courses for summer school

ALPENA — Alpena Public Schools is offering summer school for students who need to recover classes in the English, math, science, social studies and elective areas.

The deadline for enrollment is June 15 at 3 p.m. The classes start on June 18 and finish on Aug. 17. Students can register by going on the APS website and clicking on the summer school tab.

“If anyone’s interested, it’s for high school students,” Matt Poli, director of educational options, innovations and partnerships, said. “All the courses are credit recovery, so if they struggled in an algebra or science, there’s lots of options that are for them.”

Poli said the classes are going to be offered online as the school district moves toward an online format and to blend the combination of technology for students.

“It’s based on online programming, so really the students can do it at any pace, any time, any place kind of thing, so if they want to go out to the cottage or if they’re going away with their family to wherever for a week, all they need is a gadget to take with them to access it because it’s all web-based,” Poli said.

The students are going to be assigned to an APS staff member who is going to serve as their mentor during the summer. At least once a week, the mentors are going to be in contact with the students through email, phone, Google Hangout, Skype or other communication avenues.

“They will kind of help and push them moving forward just to make sure they’re staying on task,” Poli said. “They need to do somewhere between 10 to 15 percent of the course each week.”

Students and parents are going to receive weekly updates from the mentors which will include the progress in meeting the completion goal for the course.

The students will have nine weeks to finish the course during the summer.

“During that time, if they really work hard, they can finish it in about three weeks, maybe less. We’ve had some kids nail it in about two weeks and they’re pretty much good after that,” Poli said. “They can take one course, they can two courses, I would probably take one course at a time to see how that’s going.”

Poli said the advantage of offering the courses online is giving students the option to complete the course work whenever so they don’t have to worry about balancing a possible work schedule or anything else that happens during the summer.

The cost for each course is $150. Students with questions can speak with their counselor or contact Poli at 358-5170.

Julie Goldberg can be reached via email at jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5688.

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