Why more students are trying virtual classes

Published 11:27 pm Sunday, November 9, 2008

LYNNWOOD — Jordyn Clark recently went to school barefoot, wearing shamrock boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

Sitting at the kitchen table in her Lynnwood home, Jordyn logged onto her algebra class and began solving equations through the Edmonds School District’s new online program.

She is among a growing number of students across the country attending virtual classes.

Jordyn and her twin sister, Samantha, both 15-year-old sophomores, fell behind on homework and failed algebra at Mountlake Terrace High School. Now both girls are trying to make up the credits without having to attend summer school.

“I don’t have to listen to teachers tell me what to do,” Jordyn said. “This way I can sit in my pajamas and still get it done.”

Online schools are booming. In Washington, the number of elementary, middle and high school students enrolled full-time in public, online schools has nearly quadrupled in three years to 5,666 last school year.

Nationwide, the number of students enrolled in online schools jumped 60 percent, to 506,950 between 2003 and 2005, the latest year with data, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Kids attend online lectures, e-mail their homework to teachers and participate in interactive games. They also meet with their teachers during virtual office hours.

“It’s a phenomenal rate of growth,” said Sam Gladstein, who runs the Edmonds School District’s online program. “We’re seeing an incredible amount of students wanting to be involved in the program.”

Most are high schoolers

In Snohomish County, kids from Sultan to Stanwood to Mountlake Terrace are taking courses online. Most are high schoolers, but a growing number of elementary and middle school students are joining virtual schools. Most younger kids use Web-based schools as part of a home-school plan. They e-mail assignments to teachers, but also have parents guiding them.

Clinton resident Brenda Chittim enrolled her children in online school when they entered first grade. Daughter Christine is now in eighth grade and son Caleb is a sixth-grader in Washington Virtual Academies, a company that offers courses through the Steilacoom and Monroe school districts.

Students must provide their own computers, but the school mails about 70 pounds of books and materials to every student each year, said Susan Stewart, head of schools for Washington Virtual Academies.

In addition to stacks of books, Christine also received clay and paint this year for an art class.

“I was concerned at first, because I didn’t want them to spend all their time in front of a computer,” Brenda Chittim said. “In this program up until sixth grade, maybe only 20 percent of their time is spent on a computer. In upper grades, it’s more like 40 to 50 percent, but it’s not like they’re just sitting and looking at a computer all day long.”

Nationwide, just 2 percent of students enrolled in online courses in 2005 were in elementary school, according to federal data. Most — 61 percent — were in high school.

Colleges began offering modern online courses in the mid-1990s, and, within a few years, the industry exploded, said Steve Kerr, an education professor at the University of Washington who studies online learning. High schools started offering online courses in the late ’90s, and the trend toward online learning has grown steadily since.

What programs are best

Not all Web-based programs are equal, he said.

There were 45 online public schools in Washington last year. That’s up from 26 programs three years ago, according to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

While Kerr didn’t want to single out individual programs, he prefers schools developed with input from teachers and that include multimedia elements over those that are basically online textbooks with tests. He said the worst programs are usually developed without pilot tests by districts eager to cash in on the online boom.

The state pays all public schools a set amount for each enrolled student. Online classes have helped some schools boost enrollment by bringing dropouts and home-schooled kids into the system.

There haven’t been many studies done to measure how well high school students learn in virtual academies. College admissions officials are still figuring out how to evaluate online high school graduates.

Students with diplomas from regionally accredited, public online institutions should be viewed like graduates of any other public school, said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

“We are not as concerned about the form of delivery as we are about the accreditation status,” he said. “In a public high school, those are nonissues. From our perspective, there is no difference in terms of credentials whether it was an online or brick-and-mortar school.”

However, admissions officials are suspicious of degrees earned from private online schools that make students pay thousands of dollars for diplomas, Nassirian said.

Most colleges would prefer students with general equivalency diplomas over those with diplomas from nonaccredited, private online schools, he said.

“A large number of them appear to be just businesses and they tend not to be particularly rigorous,” Nassirian said. “Their offerings tend to be overpriced and a GED program would be vastly more reliable than many online high schools. Some of them charge unconscionably high rates — almost Harvard levels.”

Because most universities aren’t too familiar with virtual high schools, applicants may want to write about why they opted for an online education in an admissions essay, advised David Hawkins, director of public policy and research for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers in Arlington, Va. Colleges also may ask applicants to provide background information on their virtual high school.

An alternative option

In the coming years, Kerr expects growing numbers of online schools to incorporate interactive video games and to launch classes on social networking sites like Facebook. He also predicts that more kids who feel alienated in traditional schools will attend classes online.

“The kids who don’t look the same, don’t dress the same, don’t have the same interests, don’t feel like they want to always look like prom kings or queens, don’t feel like they always want to go to the school dances or be in the popular clubs or athletics … It’s often those kids who are very susceptible to dropping out,” he said. “It’s not because they’re not smart, but just because they don’t feel at home. To them, I think online courses offer a certain kind of safety valve. It’s somewhere they can go and be themselves.”

Trevor Black hated school.

He says he was bullied for years and, fed up, stopped attending classes at Lynnwood High School. Last year, he heard about online school and signed up. This year, he’s one of a dozen or so kids with special circumstances enrolled full time in Edmonds’ virtual school.

“When you are a victim of nonstop bullying and harassment, then it helps because you can get away from it all and be safe in your own computer,” he said. “Finally my counselor told me about this Edmonds e-Learning program. I was so thankful of it. Ever since, I have been doing much better and will be getting my diploma this year.”

Like Edmonds, the Marysville School District contracts with a private company to offer online classes to its students. The courses are becoming more popular each year and have helped several dropouts earn their diplomas, said Ray Houser, executive director of teaching and learning.

Online classes can be great for kids with physical ailments and for dropouts who are working full-time, he said. However, Houser believes virtual school usually isn’t a good idea for social kids and those who have trouble working alone, he said.

“It’s certainly not for every student — that’s for sure,” he said. “It’s not a quick fix. It’s still a rigorous program. It’s not an easy way out.”

Expansion in the works

Edmonds school leaders are considering expanding the district’s online programs. Currently only 70 students can take courses at a time, and most are just taking one class for credit retrieval. There are 25 students on the waiting list.

Gladstein, with the Edmonds district, hopes to expand the classes to serve 100 students at a time by the end of the school year. Next year, he wants to double the number of Edmonds students enrolled in online classes and possibly add more options for kids who want to go to online school full-time. If it’s an option, Jordyn Clark said next year she may ditch a brick-and-mortar school altogether in favor of virtual classes.

Not Samantha.

She likes taking algebra online, but she loves the social aspects of school.

“I like being able to see people at school,” she said, watching as her twin solved an equation. “This is cool, but not having actual class would be weird.”

Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.