The consequences of failing core academic courses during the first year are dire. In Chicago, over a quarter of students fail at least one semester of algebra in their ninth grade year, and only 13% of students who fail both semesters of Algebra I in ninth grade graduate in 4 years. Offering credit recovery options is one strategy to deal with high failure rates. The primary goal of credit recovery programs is to give students an opportunity to retake classes that they failed in an effort to get them back on track and keep them in school (Watson & Gemin, 2008). It makes theoretical sense to try to get students to recover their algebra credits early, in the summer after ninth grade--before they take geometry or Algebra II and chemistry, and to put them back on track towards graduation. But there is little evidence about the extent to which expanding credit recovery leads to substantive improvements in student progression and outcomes. Using a population of all first-time ninth grade students who entered regular neighborhood high schools in Chicago between 2008-2012, this study examines the benefits of offering expanded credit recovery options for ninth grade algebra, relative to business as usual (i.e., the summer programming schools would offer in the absence of efforts to expand credit recovery). Some CPS high schools in the study received funding to implement at least two Algebra I credit recovery courses during the summer sessions of 2011 and 2012--at least one online and one face-to-face section. Fifteen schools participated in 2011; in total they offered 18 pairs of sections (36 total). Thirteen schools participated in 2012; in total they offered 20 pairs of sections (40 total). Preliminary findings suggest that participation in this study did significantly expand access to credit recovery options. It sets the stage for the analyses of the effects of expanding credit recovery on school- and student-level outcomes that will be reported in full in this paper along with additional forthcoming results of the study. All analyses will be completed by January 2013. Three figures and two tables are appended.