Number of Online High Schools Grows

By ROBERT WELLER .c The Associated Press

MONTE VISTA, Colo. (AP) - The first cyberstudents the Monte Vista School District took in had been kicked out of school and wore radio-transmitter ankle bracelets so the police could track them.

Most were in Denver, about 150 miles and a world away from the tiny southern Colorado school district of 1,400 students near the Continental Divide.

Officials in the district, one of the state's poorest, had hoped online education could bring in badly needed money by expanding high school instruction beyond the classroom walls.

Seven years later, the district's On-line Academy lists 78 names on its students page. Those living outside Colorado pay $1,800 a year if they have computer access and $2,400 if the school provides the computer; in-state tuition is covered by the state.

Forty other school districts in Colorado have followed Monte Vista's example, and hundreds more nationwide now offer online high school classes that students otherwise might not have been able to take. Some, like Monte Vista's On-Line Academy, even have a full curriculum and diplomas.

Those who have been involved in the Monte Vista program believe in it.

``Both of our daughters went through it and got tremendous scholarships at Colorado College and the University of Colorado,'' said Roger La Borde of Alamosa.

Sig Kutter, a retired university physics lecturer who has worked with NASA, said he started teaching online from his Breckenridge home because he was bored with retirement.

``This has given me a great deal of satisfaction and commitment,'' Kutter said. ``My students have been extraordinarily motivated.''

The National Center for Education Statistics has no numbers on how many students participate in online classes.

``Online education is growing too fast to track. We are predicting widespread shortages of qualified online teachers,'' said Robert Tucker of InterEd, a consulting firm that researches education markets for colleges and universities.

Tim Snyder, who set up the Monte Vista program while superintendent there and now runs the Colorado Online Schools Consortium, sees online education as one answer to the nation's growing teacher shortage.

``We can capitalize on the talent of our master teachers who may have retired from the traditional setting,'' he said.

Parents and schools should see it as another tool for education, but not as a silver bullet, he said.

It is unlikely that more than 20 percent of potential students could benefit from online education, said Dan King, who runs the Choice 2000 virtual charter high school in Perris, Calif.

``I see a lot of kids are missed by the education system for whatever reason. Online education really is for many of those, but not all of them,'' he said. The students need to be motivated, he said.

Most online education is done with teachers and students communicating by e-mail when convenient. Most students take a class or two, Latin or advanced physics for example, which may not be available in their districts. Only a few, including King's school and the Monte Vista On-Line Academy, award high school diplomas.

King's school tests students at monitored sites to prevent cheating. Snyder said online teachers also have ways to tell if students have cut-and-pasted their homework from Web sites.

The standards for online education vary from state to state. California and Colorado require online schools to keep track of ``seat time,'' which amounts to records of e-mail traffic and discussion logs.

Choice 2000 tries to replicate the traditional classroom experience by requiring students and teachers to be online simultaneously. Students can hear and see the teacher, who has an icon on the desktop for each student. When students want to ask a question, they click on an icon.

La Borde and his wife, Pam, home-schooled their two daughters because they thought public schools were too compartmentalized and ignored the student's creative side.

``In my opinion, you have to be motivated to benefit from online education,'' said their oldest daughter, Angela La Borde.

``I liked it partly because I didn't have to wait for teachers to answer the questions of kids who didn't understand the material. And because I could work at my own pace, it left me with more time to do what I wanted to do outside of school,'' she said.

Glenn Russell of Australia's Monash University, an online education authority, worries that online education relies too much on parents supervising their children and that students aren't getting the social skills they need online.

``We hear that a lot, but our experience is that it is not as big a deal as thought. Most kids have developed their social skills by the time they reach high school,'' said Alan McFadden, director of the Monte Vista School District's On-Line Academy, a virtual high school.

Angela La Borde said she regularly interacted with others her age outside of school through dance classes and sports.

``I don't feel I missed anything,'' she said.

On the Net:

Monte Vista On-Line Academy: http://monte.k12.co.us/ola/index.htm

U.S. Distance Learning Association: http://www.usdla.org

Choice 2000 Charter School: http://www.choice2000.org/

AP-NY-09-29-01 0739EDT

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), September 30, 2001

Answers

Thanks so much for this information-I'm seriously considering homeschooling my son in a couple of years when he will be in 7th grade-I love his current elementary school but I'm afraid he will not do well in the Jr.Sr. high-he's both gifted and learning disabled-he could probably handle an on-line advanced physics class-he would struggle in Freshman English Comp. class. This is a real help. thanks again-K.

-- Kelly (markelly@scrtc.com), September 30, 2001.

If they're keeping track of "seat time", then what's the point of homeschooling? This on-line program obviously is not a 7/24 drop in when you want to thing. Many homeschool to do things at their own pace, spending extra time on difficult subjects, and less time on the easier ones. Even for average students, you still can do a typical day's schoolwork in half the time. Most children who are working (child actors, models, etc.) are only required to be in school 3 hours a day. Why are non-working (that is, outside the home) children subject to different laws anyway?

Sounds like the teachers' unions are already getting involved due to fears of unemployment. And, this is funny, because once one goes to real college (most community colleges take roll, so, even though I rate them highly on the education scale, they fit in more with the K-12 mentality bureaucracy-wise) they don't care if you show up for class or not--as long as you do your assignments, and show up for midterm and final, you will get the grade you deserve.

I do not think this is a good direction for homeschooling to be going in. Online is fine, but not punching a timeclock.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), September 30, 2001.

The internet was a great tool for us to use during our last two years of homeschooling (last one graduated two years ago) but I wouldn't want it to be a "you'd better be atthe computer at a certain time" type of thing. That would have been too much like "regular" school!

The beauty of homeschooling is working indepentently; letting parents work with children on special projects; letting the kids set the pace; and then watching them grow and learn in a miraculous way!

I still have photos of the robot Nathan built when he was in about the fifth grade....from an idea he got from a Boy Scout magazine! He did that on his own on his own time. Something he wouldn't have had time to do in "regular" structured school!

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), September 30, 2001.

This is our 5th yr to homeschool, our 2nd w/ online school. We love it. We're hooked up to Alpha Omega Academy, and my boys can pace themselves. We even skip a day now and then. Their teachers are available by phone during the day, and they can message them from their daily work if they need to. One of the few drawbacks is that AOA isn't compatible w/ AOL, but uses other,local internet providers, so we can't do school away from home unless they have the same ISP as we do. They have great tech help for the computer-challenged like me, and they're very flexible w/ financing. I think their URL is http://www.switched-onschoolhouse.com

-- cindy penuel grove (mgrove@satx.rr.com), January 17, 2002.