You are here: Home / Archives for bestonlinehighschools.com

Parents to D-Y district: Offer more, fight less

February 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

SOUTH YARMOUTH — Parents who have removed their children from the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional School District have some advice for school officials: Focus more on academic programs, including languages, make classroom sizes smaller and stop squabbling over the budget.

Parents made these points in an online school choice survey that the district conducted to see why students left for other schools.

The online survey, which ran from October to December, got only 32 responses, or 6.6 percent of 480 students who left the district, mainly to pursue school choice or charter school opportunities, said Carol Woodbury, D-Y regional school superintendent. The most recent figures available on the school district’s website show 3,241 students in the district as of October 2010.

“I wish I had 50 or 60 percent that responded,” she said. But Woodbury said she believes school officials can learn from concerns cited by parent respondents.

The district offers accelerated and innovative programs for students in grades 4 and beyond, including advanced placement courses at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School and virtual high school courses in subjects such as Latin.

For the rest of the article, go to Parents to D-Y district: Offer more, fight less

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page, online high schools Tagged With:

AP for all at Barnstable?

January 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Barnstable High School has taken another step toward improving student education.

In a special presentation during the Jan. 10 school committee meeting, BHS principal Pat Clark, vice principal Scott Pyy and math coordinator Kristen Harmon announced that the high school is among 26 finalists in the Massachusetts Math and Science Initiative, a program that aims to include as many students as possible in taking higher-level Advance Placement (AP) courses.

According to Clark, Barnstable is one of 26 finalists hoping to be awarded one of 12 MMSI slots.

At present, Barnstable has 300 students taking 21 total AP classes, 17 in traditional sit-down classrooms and four via Virtual High School.

The MMSI program, with its emphasis on classes in science, technology, engineering and math, will make it possible for Barnstable to expand its AP course offerings, include more students in AP courses and allow for the creation of pre-AP classes for students at the Intermediate School level.

“It definitely is an opportunity to elevate the levels of academic rigor at Barnstable High School that exist right now,” Pyy said.

The Massachusetts-based initiative comes from the National Math and Science Initiative, created in 2006 to close achievement gaps seen in students at the collegiate level, particularly in science and math.

For the rest of the article, go to AP for all at Barnstable?

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page Tagged With:

Maynard-based virtual school collaborative adds more members

September 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Virtual High School Global Consortium recently announced the addition of 40 new schools in 10 states to its worldwide collaborative for this new school year.

Locally, Sharon High School is among the schools that will have access to Virtual High School’s online courses. Schools in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey have joined the consortium as well.

For the rest of the article, go to Maynard-based virtual school collaborative adds more members

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page Tagged With:

High-tech home schooling

September 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

12-year-old Elizabeth and 10-year-old Timothy are students of Connections Academy – a virtual K-12 public school. It’s an emerging option for parents who want their kids schooled at home, but not necessarily home-schooled.

“It literally exists without the traditional classroom environment, but it has everything that a traditional school would have. “Connections Academy President said Barbara Dreyer.

Virtual learning has been an option for college students for many years – but younger students thrive with more interaction.

So the Henry Kids get time online with certified instructors. Funding comes through federal and state money to local districts, so the school needs to meet the same requirements.

As brick-and-mortar classrooms, adults in the home act as so-called “learning coaches.

For the rest of the article, go to High-tech home schooling

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page Tagged With:

It’s VHS at NBHS as students learn online

July 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Students at New Bedford High School are among the SouthCoast teens who have access to a big wide world of classes.

That’s because NBHS is a participant in the VHS – Virtual High School – program which allows them to select from hundreds of courses that their school does not offer.

Virtual High School courses take place entirely over the Internet and enrolled students are provided with a class block, five days each week, to work in their course and submit assignments by specified due dates.

For the rest of the article, go to It’s VHS at NBHS as students learn online

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page Tagged With:

Virtually There

July 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If Massachusetts has because of lack of leadership within the Board and the Department of Education, ground to a halt on digital learning, other states are moving fast. Let me give you two examples — one (Michigan) where the governor is particularly interested in digital learning and trying to make big changes fast; the other (Arizona) where “blended learning” is at the cutting edge.

A month or so ago, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder laid out his education agenda. Admittedly, Gov. Snyder comes to his new gig with a strong background in computer technology, having in the past helmed Gateway Computers. Drawing off research from a local think tank, he saw how digital learning programs could save money and increase student time on task.

Syder wants online learning to be an option available for students across the state, and not in a top-down structured manner. Instead, he wants to eliminate “seat-time” requirements for students and create something akin to what Florida did with its Virtual School (FLVS). (Snyder even stole FLVS’s slogan “Any Time, Any Place, Any Way, Any Pace.”) Unlike what we’ve seen in Massachusetts on this issue, Snyder calls for “leveraging technology” by giving

every child in Michigan who needs or wants up to two hours of daily online education must receive it. To help enable this policy, any enrollment caps or seat time requirements on virtual schools should be removed.

For the rest of the article, go to Virtually There

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page Tagged With: ,

Virtually Worlds Apart

June 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The bad news for Massachusetts is that states like Florida, Colorado, Michigan, Arizona and so many others are pushing forward with digital learning much faster than the Bay State is. In fact, the education bureaucracy is putting some of the strictest limits in the country on expanding digital learning. That may seem odd in a state better known than most for developing and leveraging technology.

In last year’s education reform law, several legislative leaders wanted to leverage technology more effectively after seeing the results in other states such as Florida, where students are getting more time on task and access to AP and other specialized courses digitally. It’s hard not to be impressed by what Florida has accomplished in this field, with funds being expended only when a student successfully completes a specific course.

After the passage of the 2010 ed reform law, the state Department of Education, bowing to pressure from school superintendents and other groups who feared competition on yet another front, decided to promulgate restrictive regulations for digital schools. These include limits on the number of students who can participate in a virtual school (500) and geographical limitations on who can access the programming (25+ percent have to come from within the district; no more than 2 percent of kids can come from any sending district).

Fir the rest of the article, go to Virtually Worlds Apart

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page Tagged With: ,

Hadley’s virtual school on hold

May 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The virtual school that Superintendent Nicholas Young planned to open this fall will be put on hold amid state concerns about quality control and duplication of effort.

Young envisioned that students in grades six through 12 from all over the state who can’t attend a typical public school would log onto their home computers and take courses from a virtual school in Hadley. The school district contracted with a private, for-profit company to provide the courses this fall.

But Mitchell Chester, the state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, has other ideas. He recommended that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education deny Hadley’s application for a waiver from the requirement that 25 percent of the students be residents of the town.

For the rest of the article, go to Hadley’s virtual school on hold

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page Tagged With:

Virtual classes attract students

May 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

SOUTH HADLEY – Students today have learning options that were undreamed of even a generation ago.

Among these is the on-site Virtual High School (VHS), a school-within-a-school that operates online.

At a recent School Committee meeting, high school Principal Daniel T. Smith updated the board on enrollment and grades in the virtual high school.

South Hadley High School has about 700 students, of whom 62 were approved to take virtual school courses this year.

The virtual school should not be confused with the Virtual Academy at Greenfield, an online school that opened in 2010 to serve kindergarten through 8th grade.

For the rest of the article, go to Virtual classes attract students

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page Tagged With:

Virtual High School going strong at South Hadley High

May 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

SOUTH HADLEY – Students today have learning options that were undreamed of even a generation ago.

Among these is the on-site Virtual High School (VHS), a school-within-a school that operates online.

At a recent South Hadley School Committee meeting, high school principal Daniel T. Smith updated the group on enrollment and grades in the Virtual High School at South Hadley High.

South Hadley High has about 700 students, of whom 62 were approved to take virtual school courses this year.

For the rest of the article, go to Virtual High School going strong at South Hadley High

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page Tagged With:
« Older Posts