The 2021-2022 school year looks to give back the events and traditions that were lost starting in the spring of 2020 and throughout last year as the ongoing pandemic changed our lives. In addition to bringing back fans at sporting events and homecoming dances, academic opportunities like Aca-prep have also returned.

However, Aca-prep’s long standing procedure of colored passes has given way, like most things, to new technology. This new software, otherwise known as FTM, will allow students to schedule times with their teachers to get additional academic help. 

Mr. Strauss says that, “Beyond just academics, it also is a great scheduling tool for students to attend such things as club and college recruitment meetings.”

Our school uses Tuesday and Thursday mornings for its Aca-prep. It has always been an expectation, but this year the administration is requiring that Tuesdays are strictly for academics only, leaving Thursdays for either academics or extracurricular activities.

“Since academics is the main focus…that will take priority over any choice activities like club meetings,” Mr. Strauss tells us to note. 

When the Mountain Ridge administration was approached by the FTM company and informed about all of the ways that it could benefit our school, Mr. Vines, the principal, worked with the company to create a set up for this 2021-2022 school year. The offer to this program was taken up given the struggles that our previous years of aca-prep transportation included. 

“The biggest issue with our old system,” states Mr. Strauss, “was tracking where students were going using passes as well as scheduling time with students who needed academic help.”

FTM, being a program through technology, changes the whole organizational scheming of it all. The convenience of this process allows for teachers to easily schedule interventions with specific students or groups of students as well as allowing students to easily schedule a time to do makeup work and/or to simply ask a question. 

Starting something new always has some sort of scary sound to it, but once everybody understands how to use the software a little better, the delay for being on board will be no more! 

Mr. Strauss says that he has heard, “…an overwhelming praise for what this program can do from both teachers and students.” 

Not only have four other schools in our very DVUSD district signed up for the FTM program, but teachers throughout our school are asking to expand out its use. The satisfaction of its organizational aspect that it claims to have has teachers wanting to be able to schedule their own office hours within their taught classes. 

So far, the system clearly demonstrates good assistance to students and staff. Hopefully FTM shows to be a good fit here at Ridge continuing on!