Pine Forge Academy Offers Diverse Learning Options

Story by Dinah Jordan

Allegheny East Conference's Pine Forge Academy (PFA) has introduced a new online learning opportunity for the 2018–19 academic year, allowing the school to reach a greater number of students and families. They will also continue to enhance their curriculum by offering dual-credit classes and a new math initiative, created by the Math department.

Pine Forge Academy Online, powered by EdOptions, offers online classes to support student learning in grades 9-12. This program targets three key areas: a full-time option for homeschoolers; credit recovery for missed coursework; and some Advanced Placement (AP) classes PFA currently doesn’t offer. PFA administrators and trustees are excited about potential student growth with this new learning option. To learn more about how to enroll in the online learning program, visit pineforgeacademy.org.

This school year, PFA has again partnered with Montgomery County Community College (MontCo) in Pottstown, Pa., to offer dual-credit classes to students who are in PFA’s Honors and AP programs. Currently PFA provides students the opportunity to enroll in Honors classes, which help prepare them for AP courses. Students who enroll in this program will have the opportunity to learn from a college curriculum and earn credits that will give them a head start on college credits.

Via PFA’s website, students are able to view a potential list of offered courses: English, math, science, music and foreign language.

Finally, as a testament to the strong talent at PFA, and in conjunction with the PFA/MontCo partnership, MontCo has permitted eligible PFA teachers to instruct customized courses on PFA’s campus.

PFA also began another initiative this past school year. The Math department offered Math Camp twice to improve test scores and provide added math support for students. Junior Aliya Lambert says, “Participating in Math Camp [last school year] benefited me by teaching me new strategies to help me with the math portion of the ACT.” Jonathan Tyrell, also a junior, agrees, “I attended Math Camp because my biggest concern has been the math section of the ACT. I wanted to increase my math scores.”

The main objective of Math Camp is to increase students’ ACT scores. The intensive mathematics sessions engaged students for up to 10 hours. Students in grades 9-12 practiced, reviewed and learned a wide variety of mathematical concepts, ranging from pre-Algebra and Intermediate Algebra to Coordinate and Plane Geometry and Trigonometry. By a way of measuring the camp’s success, after the second camp session, some students improved their ACT math scores by seven points.