Tomika Ferguson (Assistant Professor, VCU School of Education, George Hewan (Assistant Principal, Fairfax), Alison Koenka(Assistant Professor, VCU School of Education), Amy Jefferson (PhD Student, VCU School of Education), John Marshall (Principal, Henrico) David Naff (MERC Assistant Director), and Morgan Saxby(Elementary School Teacher, Chesterfield)from the MERC Equitable Access and Support for Advanced Coursework study team discuss the importance of ensuring that all students have access to accelerated learning opportunities throughout K12. We provide key takeaways from the literature as well as an overview of our collaborative research design for this MERC study.