Carnes’ schedule consists of 15 study periods that take the place of what would otherwise be time spent in face-to-face class with a teacher (each online class accounts for 5 study periods, with additional physics lab periods).  Since his academic and disciplinary record have allowed him “senior privileges,” or the ability to leave school during study periods and lunch, Carnes is only required to be in school for 20 of the 35 class periods that meet in one rotation of the schedule.  Consequently, Carnes is only required to physically be in school for 47% of that total rotation.

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“It gives the students an opportunity to study a subject that we don’t offer at the high school … really exciting things that we wouldn’t have the staffing to offer,” said Mary Nancy Toscano, Westerly assistant principal and on-site coordinator for the program.

The program is called Virtual High School. Based in Maynard, Mass., the nonprofit corporation was founded in 1996 and offers more than 200 elective courses to advanced placement and honors students. Those courses include forensic science, oceanography, and pre-veterinary science.

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Full-time virtual schools have become a flashpoint for controversy over the quality of online education. Much of their growth is being driven by huge for-profit companies that critics say are more focused on returns to shareholders than student achievement. Student outcomes at many schools have been poor, and some educators recoil at the idea of children as young as kindergarten missing out on the social development that comes from attending a school with peers.

The much bigger frontier in online learning, however, involves tapping innovation to better serve students in traditional schools. Students are complementing standard in-school course loads with classes taught online. Mean­while, classroom-based courses are integrating online technology into the face-to-face instruction provided by teachers. More than 1.8 million K-12 students nationwide are estimated to be involved in this so-called “blended learning.”

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Interim librarian Abigail Croyle and teacher Ann Tassinari, along with 50 Hamilton-Wenham students, are currently participating in the program.

Students are taking subjects that vary from advanced placement courses like Russian, DNA technology, German to video game design, world religions and parenting in the 21st century.

For the rest of the article, go to Web classes breakdown classroom limits in Hamilton-Wenham Regional High

Virtual High School is designed to supplement a school’s classroom curriculum. Virtual High School is a non-profit, worldwide collaborative of high schools, teachers and students. VHS member schools have access to over 200 online elective, advanced placement and honors courses, which are delivered co-synchronously and taught by VHS teachers who actively teach in classrooms at their member schools.

All teachers are certified in their specific discipline and have completed a graduate level professional development program in online teaching. Instructors facilitate and continually monitor all courses, engaging students in discussions, and assessing each individual student’s progress.

‘A great experience’

“It’s just great for them to be taking these online courses because they get to interact with people from all over the country,” said Cusick. “Which I think is great because you’re taking this online class with people from all over who have different perspectives, and different ways of thinking. It’s definitely a great experience for any high school student. Another aspect is a lot of colleges are having elements of their classes online. So this is getting them ready for higher education.”

For the rest of the article, go to Tewksbury Memorial High School classes go virtual

Students in California can now take Virtual High School’s high-quality Advanced Placement® (AP), language and social sciences courses online from their school or home.

February 15, 2012, Maynard, MA – Virtual High School Global Consortium (http://www.goVHS.org), the pioneer of K-12 online learning and course design for teachers, today announced that 16 of their award-winning online courses have been approved to meet requirements for admission to the University of California. High schools in California can now enroll their students in individual courses to expand their curriculum or easily overcome scheduling challenges.

For the rest of the article, go to Press Release: Virtual High School Courses Receive California Approval

For the rest of the article, go to Coopersville High Joins Virtual High School Consortium

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

(f) I want to find ways to provide top notch programming and services, without charging people fees upon fees upon fees. A parent in our town with three kids in school could easily be paying $3000 in fees alone, between $500+ for buses, $800 for sports, more for activity fees, admission to sports events, music lessons, busses to the speech tourney, etc. I have often felt that this creates an inherent imbalance between those who can afford all the things they want, and those who cannot, and think that fees, quite simply, need to begin to go down, and then vanish, in my opinion – even if that means making harder choices in other areas.

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Fitzpatrick is one of 18 students at the high school taking online courses through Virtual High School Inc.

For the courses, students log into a website and receive instructions from a certified teacher, interact with other students, submit their work, “discuss” ideas and more.

Students and staff said the courses have several advantages, one of the most obvious being that students can study topics the district either can’t afford to offer or doesn’t provide due to limited student interest.

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