True North: A family magazine for Bend and Central Oregon.

Virtual Education Making Inroads in Central Oregon
By Tia Duerrmeyer

Traditional education as we know it today is taking on a new persona. Virtual schooling - the fastest growing trend in both public and private education - is making inroads into Central Oregon, stirring up a quiet revolution.

Virtual schools are completely different from the "hallowed halls" setting that is the staple in American culture. They need no brick and mortar to operate. They offer their academics through Web-based courses, regularly serving children in grades K-12. Some even offer college level classes, allowing students to earn both high school graduation and post-graduation credits at the same time.

"Distance education finally brings democracy to education. It gives the student in East L.A., or Brentwood, or Martha's Vineyard, or Harlem or Pakistan an equal opportunity to content curriculum and to people with many perspectives," says Tom Layton, who in 1995 founded Eugene's CyberSchool, the first public high school program in Oregon to offer high school credit over the Internet. "I believe students who learn with each other will learn from each other. Until now, the single biggest factor influencing the quality of education was where you live. If you don't believe me, ask any real estate agent. For the 21st Century it is not going to be where you live but how you are connected."

This year in Central Oregon, 10 full-time and four part-time high school students are connected every day. A group of parents desiring an educational alternative other than the customary neighborhood public school has formed an unincorporated, non-profit, cooperative homeschool program. All students enrolled in the Christian Education Alliance are registered with the High Desert Educational Services District as the law requires; and unlike many virtual programs, they study in a classroom setting that parallels public school hours and its calendar.

English literature, biology, algebra I and II, Bible, leadership, and Spanish I are offered; with seven teachers and/or facilitators on staff, all of whom are volunteers. Online classes are accessed through Sevenstar Academy (www.sevenstaracademy.org), an online, accredited Christian school. "We're using Sevenstar for English, biology and history. We are learning the whole technical world of how to do online learning," said Cheri Miller, a certified teacher who is facilitating the online English literature class.

Next year, Central Oregon will welcome its first cyber public school. The Sisters school board has given the stamp of approval to a new charter school, the Sisters Web and Early College Academy (SWECA). The school will target homeschool, drop-out, and non-attending students in grades K-12 with the mission of providing "a high quality, computer based education that will meet state standards, as well as a strong 'dual credit' opportunity, awarding its graduates with a high school diploma and preparing its graduates for continued post-secondary education."

SWECA estimates it will enroll no more than 200 Sisters School District students and the 400 out-of-district students the law allows. The school is patterned after the successful North Clackamas Web Academy and Clackamas Middle College, a public charter school of the 17,000 student Portland area school district. The director of the North Clackamas Web program Tim King is spearheading the new school in Sisters.

The Sisters charter school will loan computers to students, with the child's family incurring the cost of the initial Internet set-up, if necessary, and monthly Internet access fees.

The North Clackamas Web program has a vast waiting list, according to King. More than 1,400 students are in line to enroll. "This is one of the reasons we are looking to expand.... A lot of those students are in Deschutes County and Central Oregon. We are very interested in being over here and being able to serve those students," he said.

For public school administrators filling virtual schools is proving easy. The balancing act is assuring that these schools do not decrease enrollment in mainstream schools. "It is pretty clear, not only from us but from other charter schools that have online education, that filling this kind of school is pretty easy. In fact, the big concern isn't so much whether to fill the school; the big concern is making sure that we don't take kids out of the schools that are here...,"King said.

Nationwide the overall number of K-12 students engaged in online courses in 2005-2006 was estimated at 700,000 by the The Sloan Consortium, a conglomerate of institutions and organizations committed to online education. Breaking these figures down even more, nearly two out of three, or 63 percent, of school districts had one or more students enrolled in either a fully online or a blended online course that combines online learning with traditional hands-on instruction like that offered by the Christian Education Alliance.

Amidst the current buzz that virtual education is the best thing since sliced bread, its skeptics, which include the nation's largest teacher's union, find many faults. Virtual education has been coined "homeschooling at taxpayers' expense," siphoning money from traditional public schools to companies who sell computers, software, and peripheries to school districts.

Whether you think you like the idea or not, online education is a reality in Central Oregon. If the concept here catches on like it has nationally, both private and public cyber schools will start popping up throughout the High Desert, and it won't be long until other area public school districts join Sisters in offering an alternative for those students who will benefit from what King defines as a "high quality, computer based, non-traditional form of education."