Technology is changing the way your children are learning. For years, colleges have offered online courses and degrees. Now it seems your student could graduate from high school without ever stepping foot in a classroom. NewsChannel 8's Kim Jackson says this revolutionary curriculum may surprise even the most modern parents.
For whatever reasons, some students cannot cope in a traditional classroom. Now, even your first grader can trade a pencil and paper for a mouse and a keyboard.
Welcome to online school in Oklahoma.
Blink and you might miss White Oak school. But don't be fooled. This school is larger than it looks.
First grade only has six students, 2nd only has four students and the entire physical school only has fifty five students. But the online enrollment is bursting with 881 statewide virtual students--more than most urban high schools.
"A school is a business just like any others if you cannot provide what your client wants, they will go somewhere else," said David Money, superintendent of White Oak Schools.
Rural White Oak started offering online school, for first through 8th graders from all over Oklahoma, spiking enrollment, and their school budget, which had dwindled to almost nothing. The growth was so fast; state leaders placed the online school on probation.
Their budget increased by $2 million, improving the experience for their physical students.
"Whatever teachers need we can provide for them. Every classroom has a whiteboard, every child has a laptop," said Money
It's all thanks to state funding for online students.
Pierceson Stutsman wouldn't even smile for his school pictures. He dreaded his regular school.
"I know how miserable he was and I know how bright he is and I know how well he has done up until this point. For his grades to have fallen off face of the earth like they did we had to find an alternative," said Richard Stutsman, his father.
Now, Pierceson is enrolled in Tulsa's online school with about 200 other students.
He's a self-proclaimed introvert who didn't like the pressure to engage.
"It's not that I hate being social. I guess school is a situation where you are forced to be social the time," he said.
Pierceson completes 25-hours of class time a week.
Online learning has become big business with nearly every school offering their own program, trying to hold on to their students, and the funding that comes with them.
Right now, it's like the wild, wild west, where people are moving in like a land run, people are staking their properties," said Gary Stanislawsky, republican state senator from Tulsa.
Stanislawsky doesn't expect online learning to replace traditional schools, but he has introduced a bill, to help regulate online learning. One part would have required online teachers to make one phone call a week to students.
He says school leaders shot the idea down, themselves.
Michelle Johnson says she monitors online classes and she helps teach one class a week.
"It's a lot like in our brick and mortar setting here. We have families that will sometimes call everyday and just want to talk," she explains the interaction.
Students respond, with clicks and chats with her and each other.
Top educators, parents and students say students still get the social skills they need, online, at home and through social networks like Facebook.
White Oak plans to offer special online courses to their "traditional" students, courses that will attract more enrollments, for classes they can't find in rural Oklahoma.
"French, German Latin, with the tribe, Cherokee, and to offer those advanced placement courses. High schools could not afford the teachers," she says.
White Oak is planning to grow, and increase the online student body to 2000 students the next year.
We had to ask the superintendent, whose name happens to be, David Money, one final question...
"Is this all about the money?" we asked.
"No ma'am," he said.
Maybe not and in a world of budget cuts, perhaps this little country school found a high tech tool to stay alive.
By fall the new state superintendent is expected to have regulations in place to handle what could be a record number of online enrollments.
White Oak expects to be off probation soon. They're planning to increase population at their brick and mortar school and to possibly have enough students for a football or softball team.
