Knox middle and high school teachers are gearing up for the introduction of the Apex digital learning system. Training sessions were held last week for sixth through 12th grade teachers, according to High School Principal Dr. Elizabeth Ratliff.
She told the school board that Apex offers a predetermined, designed curriculum. “It has not only courses that are built to work kids up to skills,” she explained. “It has courses that are built to take as a brand new course, where they do the complete course, and it has courses that are for, basically, credit recovery. That allows the kid to take a test, and if they know it, they pass it by, if they’ve already taken that class. And then it also has a large number of courses that were designed by AP, so they are actually AP and higher-level courses.”
Ratliff said it will open up a wide range of course options for all Knox High School students. “If we have a kid who, due to scheduling conflicts, gets bumped out of a class, they could take it online,” she said. “We’re going to put a few of our very specialty classes on Apex, and they’re just going to do those classes with a teacher supervising, like Accounting. We have three kids that want accounting, but we don’t have enough to actually hold a class. So they’re going to be able to do that on Apex, with a business teacher monitoring and talking about those connections.”
Ratliff stressed that while Apex lets students work at their own pace, the online classes are not easier than traditional ones. :We have learned that very quickly,” she told board members. “It is not something you can say, ‘I will click on it, and I’m going to complete my class in three and a half hours on a weekend.’ So it is not easier than regular class. It is different.” She said that Apex Math is particularly difficult, which makes it especially important that teachers have the skills they need to make sure students understand the subject matter.
Ratliff said the Apex program was tested this summer on a group of band students who didn’t have the chance to take the Careers class in middle school. She said that proved very helpful in problem-solving the system.
