High School Is Virtual, but the Caps and Gowns Are Real
June 14, 2003
By SARA RIMER
MARS, Pa., June 12 - The school superintendent, Nicholas
Trombetta, took the stage in the ballroom of the Sheraton
Hotel here. The musicians struck up "Pomp and
Circumstance." The parents raised their cameras.
It could have been any small town high school graduation.
Except for one thing: Almost none of the 56 graduates,
marching in procession in their royal blue caps and gowns,
had ever met before.
It was the third graduation of the Western Pennsylvania
Cyber Charter School here, where the age of online learning
and virtual classrooms has come to an old steel town. The
graduates had emerged from cyberspace - from behind their
computers in living rooms, bedrooms, basements and kitchens
all over the state - to collect their diplomas, shake the
hand of Dr. Trombetta, whom they had never seen before, and
to meet one another in the fluorescent-lighted reality of
the Sheraton ballroom.
Jenson West, whose family had made the 90-minute drive to
the ceremony from Boswell, was euphoric. Regular school, as
he and his fellow graduates referred to it, had not been
kind to him. The football coach had called him fat, he
said. His classmates had taunted him. But now, at
graduation, he was chatting up one of the prettiest girls
in the class, Chelsea Carothers, from Ohioville.
"She's really a super person," Jenson, a 17-year-old who
could not stop smiling, said afterward. "We both came from
the same kind of thing - kids were mean, school was messed
up."
In just two years, the number of cyberschools has doubled -
to 67 schools with nearly 16,000 students, in Pennsylvania,
California, Washington, Ohio, Florida, Arizona and 11 other
states, according to the Center for Education Reform, a
nonprofit organization that supports charter schools.
With many of their students saying they did not fit in at
regular school or from rural areas with failing schools and
few educational alternatives, some cyberschools have been
praised by educators. But with the schools as diverse as
the charter school movement itself, and difficult to
monitor, just how good many of them are is still unclear,
experts say.
"The high quality cyberschools connect with kids who have
either been pushed out or who have opted to leave
conventional schools," said Bruce Fuller, a professor of
education and public policy at the University of California
at Berkeley. "But it remains unclear whether the cyber
curricula and sporadic contact with human beings leads to
tangible learning gains for these kids."
And, Professor Fuller said, there have been instances in
several states where cyberschools have collected tens of
thousands of dollars from local school districts and
delivered poor programs.
But in Midland, about 25 miles west of Mars, the Western
Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School seems to be working well.
The elementary and secondary students, whose numbers have
grown to nearly 2,000 from 500, have performed well on
state achievement tests.
Teachers closely monitor the students through phone calls
and online communication, Dr. Trombetta said. At least one
parent is required to be at home to supervise a child's
work. The school supplies students with textbooks and new
computers.
All students in the state are eligible, though Dr.
Trombetta says disciplined, motivated students are the best
candidates for online learning.
This year's school budget is $7.3 million and is financed
by state and local education funds. A student's home school
district must pay for the student to enroll, based on its
own per-pupil expenditures. The payments range from $5,500
to $12,000 per student.
Housed in a former bank building on the main street, next
to the V.F.W. post and across from Ernie's Pharmacy, the
cyberschool has brought hope and energy to a town that is
still fighting to recover from the early 1980's, when the
steel industry collapsed and thousands of workers lost
their jobs. The school's 140 full- and part-time jobs,
including 80 certified teachers, makes it one of the
biggest employers in town.
Just blocks from a closed steel mill, the school is viewed
by many of Midland 3,300 residents as an emblem of the
future.
Patience Katich, the president of the Cyber School Board,
whose father worked in the steel mill, said: "We're not
stuck in the box of being just an old steel community.
We're moving on."
After the mill closed, thousands of families left in search
of work elsewhere. With only a few dozen students
remaining, Midland's Lincoln High School, for decades a
football and basketball powerhouse, was forced to close in
1985. Rejected by nearby schools in their own state, the
remaining high school students ended up attending school in
neighboring East Liverpool, Ohio.
Worried that the students might eventually be turned away
from East Liverpool, Dr. Trombetta, a steelworker's son
intent on reviving Midland, and a group of townspeople
decided to open a cyberschool.
As it turned out, most of the Midland high school students
have chosen to continue commuting to the school in Ohio.
The cyberstudents are from all over Pennsylvania, from
Philadelphia to the Poconos to Pittsburgh.
Mary Crapis, a new instructional supervisor at the school,
met one of her students, Jeffrey Wilkerson, for the first
time this evening. "You can't judge these kids by what they
look like," Ms. Crapis said. "All you know is their story."
Thirty-two graduates did not attend the ceremony because of
scheduling conflicts and distance. Marc Stone, 17, and his
sister Lisa, 18, who were both graduating, had driven four
hours from Gettysburg for the ceremony. Marc underwent a
kidney transplant when he was an infant. He still has
health problems. Cyberschool allowed him to continue
advancing - he was already taking college courses - even
when he had to spend weeks in the hospital.
"I took my laptop with me," he explained.
His cyberschool
offered several different types of learning and different
curriculums. He took most of his classes by reading the
textbooks the school supplied and logging onto his computer
to do the homework and take tests.
Other students were in virtual classrooms, where they log
onto, say, math class at 8 a.m. They talk to the teacher by
using a headset and microphones. They clicked on icons that
simulated actions like raising their hands, answering yes
or no, or leaving the room.
For many of Marc's fellow graduates, cyberschool had been
liberating. They could sit at their computers - in their
pajamas, if they wanted - and focus on learning. None of
their classmates, or their teachers, knew what they looked
like.
It did not matter, said one graduate, Jana Poling, whether
you had a boyfriend or the right brand of jeans or whether,
as in Jana's case, your father happened to be the pastor in
town. As long as you logged on, turned in the work on time,
and stayed in close touch with your teacher - by telephone
and computer - school went well.
"When are you ever going to get in trouble in cyberschool?"
Jenson said, explaining that no one in cyberspace ever gets
sent to the principal's office.
Aaron Doctor was wearing blue nail polish, thick pancake
makeup, penciled-on black eyebrows that matched his dyed
black hair.
"I had a horrible time in high school," said Aaron,
referring to his hometown school, in Fayette City. In
cyberspace, he said, he can be himself. "It's a lot more
comfortable than the regular world. I can doll it up and
draw on my eyebrows."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/14/education/14GRAD.html?ex=1056580211&ei=1&e
n=e34e731a85b63464
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