The Illinois General Assembly passed the Illinois Accelerated Placement Act in 2021 to provide opportunities for high school students to take more challenging coursework. It will go into effect at Oak Park River Forest High School this school year.
All ninth through 12th grade students who meet or exceed a certain benchmark on this year’s standardized testing will be automatically enrolled into the next most rigorous course level in the 2024-2025 school year.
This act is separate from the 2018 Accelerated Placement Act, which established Illinois’s fair and equitable acceleration policies.
Laurie Fiorenza, E.d.D., the Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning at OPRF, said that the purpose of this law is, “to make sure that students who are capable will not get discouraged by barriers… from taking rigorous coursework.”
Kristen McKee, coordinator of learning analytics and supports at OPRF, added that “what that means for every individual student is an individual decision.”
While students may be automatically enrolled in a more challenging class, they are not required to stick with that change. Fiorenza said that “students and families do have the option to make decisions based on balance and interests.”
McKee agreed that “we should still value student input, teacher input and parent input.”
When making schedule changes, McKee recommended that students consider both challenge and balance and ask themselves, “What kind of time do I have? Am I willing to put this in?” Many students must focus on balancing sports, activities, jobs and family life, so they might not have the time to commit to a higher-level class.
Although this law introduces a new system at OPRF for upperclassmen, freshmen have experienced accelerated placement into honors courses since last year.
Beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, OPRF introduced detracked courses for freshmen in all core classes except math, essentially removing the “college prep” level and placing those students into honors-level courses instead.
The detracking initiative was intended to correct “systemic inequities in honors-level enrollment and honors credit attainment for Black students,” according to a report delivered at the Sept. 7 meeting of the School Board.
The report concludes that “we have maintained similar achievement patterns as in previous years and found small gains: increased access to honors courses, increased honors enrollment at the sophomore level, PSAT achievement in some racial subgroups, and more racially diverse classes.”
Sophomore Clara Lau, who experienced the detracked classroom as a freshman in the 2022-2023 school year, speaks highly of diversifying rigorous classes. “More students were given the opportunity to succeed at a higher level, and it worked,” said Lau.
Success at the ninth-grade level is an excellent indicator of the impact that the Illinois Accelerated Placement Act will have on other grades, according to Fiorenza. “OPRF is already focused on ensuring that students have access to the most rigorous coursework; we started that with our freshman experience, and [the focus on making challenging courses widely available] pursues into the next grade levels,” she said.
