The New Hampshire Board of Education approved the State’s first entirely virtual school in May of 2007 and it plans to open in January of 2008.
The Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, at first, will only serve as a supplement to traditional high school, as it won’t offer enough courses to be able to offer a complete alternative. It will offer 28 courses when it opens in January, including Advanced Placement, foreign language, various science, and SAT Prep classes.
However, once the school gets rolling they hope to be able to offer enough courses to allow students to obtain their high school diplomas completely online.
The advantage to this online charter school is that students will now be able to get their high school degrees if they otherwise wouldn’t because of serious health issues, families that move constantly, or for those students with full-time jobs.
As recent graduates of high school, after reflecting on our own high school experiences, we have many concerns about this new virtual school.
Our first concern is that for a publicly funded school, it is selective and requires an application process. The school’s admission is selective because, according to the academy’s CEO, it would only be able to serve those students who are motivated to learn at their own pace and have the appropriate technological resources, such as a personal computer and internet connection.
Unfortunately, this means it discriminates against students who are not middle to upper class and who aren’t already motivated and doing well in school. If the selling feature of this online school is that it supplements traditional high school, why must you already be a good student to use its services? It seems unfortunate that while everyone’s money is going towards its funding, not all students will be open to its benefits.
Our second concern is that while academics are a large part of the high school experience, we would argue that the social aspect is even larger. Students acquire social skills ranging from acceptance of others to how to date and most students can’t afford to lose that experience.
While we see the value in this additional resource for nontraditional students on a part time or temporary basis, we hope the administrators are very careful of how it’s used. It would be a shame if online education evolved so much that students lost the social experiences and extracurricular programs that come along with it.
We suggest the implementation of a program like this, requires the implementation of a number of other programs, including social ones within communities so the onset of virtual education doesn’t produce a generation of students whose social growth has been stunted.
– The Clock Staff