Virtual education is also expanding online. In a sense, this is nothing new. The University of Nebraska- Lincoln’s Independent Study High School has been operating since the 1920s, offering courses first by mail, and more recently, online.
Most of its students are from outside Nebraska – including people in all 50 states and more than 100 countries who want an American diploma, or people whose schedules haven’t permitted a traditional high school education, like entertainer Britney Spears in her younger years. But 11 percent of its course enrollments are from Nebraska – 2,800 in the last two years.
Now, the high school is involved in a virtual partnership, testing demand for online courses for Nebraska students through a pilot program offering them for free. High School Director Barbara Wolf Shousha said that in general, Nebraska schools do a good job of meeting students’ needs on their own. But, she added, “There are, however, always those situations where there isn’t a match – where there’s a very high-performing student who desires curriculum options that the school doesn’t have, or alternative students that aren’t performing well because of the emotional noise of a high school classroom. And they are better suited for the online, individual instruction.”
This year, instead of charging students or schools, the University offered 50 free courses from the Independent Study High School. It received 74 applications, and decided to accept all of them.
Among them was one from Wheeler Central High School in Bartlett, a small town about 50 miles west of Norfolk. On a recent morning, guidance counselor Dawn Erickson was giving student Brianna Millison some one-on-one help with an online course in etiquette, to supplement her family and consumer science class.
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