The Arkansas Advanced Placement (AP) Professional Development Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is obligated by the Arkansas Department of Education to accurately report the hours attended at the AP Summer Institute. Teachers in Arkansas are required to attend an APSI and acquire 30 hours of training in order to have the certification to teach an AP Course.
The APSI staff at UA Little Rock take this responsibility seriously, so attendance at the APSI is closely monitored and reported to ADE. Certificates will only be issued for 30 hours, if the participant actually attended 30 hours. If fewer than 30 hours are attended, the certificate will reflect the actual number of hours.
Absences: If a participant must miss some of the APSI time for a valid reason (i.e. a doctor’s appointment or illness), up to four hours may be made up by doing an alternative assignment: if the assignment is completed by the due date, the participant will receive the full 30 hours. Time missed over four hours cannot be made up by an alternate assignment, so the amount of time will be deducted from the 30 hour total; that amount will appear on the certificate.
For instance, if a participant misses six hours, but the participant completes make-up work for the maximum four hours, the participant’s certificate will then show 28 hours completed.
Make up assignments must be submitted by 5:00 pm on the Friday of the APSI week.
Procedure: When the participant knows that he/she will need to be absent, he/she will need to contact the APSI Coordinator or Course Assistant to discuss the absence and the actions that will be taken. The Course Assistant or Coordinator will discuss with the Consultant about an appropriate make-up assignment for up to four hours. The participant can decline the assignment, in which case the total hours missed will be deducted from the 30 hour total.
Online APSIs: Part of attendance in an online setting includes having your camera on and being an active participant in discussions. Our expectation is that all participants will have cameras on for the majority of the synchronous sessions.
