News
Study: Too few schools are teaching cyber safety
Students aren’t getting enough instruction in school on how to use technology and the internet in a safe and responsible manner, a new poll suggests. Released by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and supported by Microsoft Corp., the survey found fewer than one-fourth of U.S. teachers have spent more than six hours on any... »
Local gymnast nabs national all-around crown
At 12 years old, Powell Middle School gymnast Jacqueline Jacobs recently achieved a lofty goal when she traveled to Chicago to compete in a national tournament. At the IGI Chicago Style Gymnastic Invitational, which bills itself as ‘The Largest Women’s Gymnastic Meet in the World,’ Jacobs won the Level 9 all-around title against some of... »
Elk Grove Unified to open a virtual school
This August a few hundred students in the Elk Grove Unified School District will have their school year delivered to their doorstep in a giant UPS box. The K-12 students will be part of the district’s first-ever virtual school. The box will contain grade-specific supplies – books, globes, maps – that students will need to finish a... »
Online courses can reduce the costly sting of college
Inessa Volkonidina had taken precalculus once and dropped it. She needed to take it again, and quickly, to fulfill a graduation requirement at Long Island University. She went online and found a company with an odd name, StraighterLine, that offered the course on even odder terms: $99 a month. She thought it might be a... »
In Fort Worth stop, Perry calls for online high school classes
To whittle the state’s dropout rate, Gov. Rick Perry proposes creating a virtual high school that would let students take classes online if they can’t make it to school every day. As an incentive for kids to stay in school, Perry said, he wants the state to require that high school students be taking classes... »
Picketing cyber school teachers want face time with PALO board
Carrying colorful signs adorned with a character from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” the 15 teachers and counselors shivering in a Homestead parking lot Thursday morning weren’t part of your normal picket line. The group wasn’t striking, nor was it seeking raises and better benefits. Instead, the members of the first cyber charter school union... »
Student overcomes adversity with Virtual School
Daniel Contreras, a senior at Dekaney High School, started losing his sight at age 15 due to congenital glaucoma. By the time he was 17 he had totally lost his eyesight, fallen behind on his classes and wasn’t given much hope for graduating on time with his classmates. He even considered dropping out of school,... »
Cyber school officials disagree with Southmoreland’s assessment
Cyber school officials don’t agree with Southmoreland School District Superintendent John Halfhill’s assessment that the organizations drain local public school district funding and aren’t making the grade in regards to state testing. At a recent school board meeting, Halfhill presented findings from the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Web site that showed several cyber schools missed... »
NC Virtual School Offers Statewide Access to Streaming Digital Content
North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS) has announced it has signed an agreement to offer free access to Discovery Education streaming, the company’s digital video-based learning system, to educators and students throughout the state. The school has also chosen the company to provide professional development services for its educators. With partnerships with several companies and... »
As online classes boom, questions of rigor arise
A fast-growing number of Minnesota K-12 students are migrating from the classroom to a home computer, in what some experts say is the vanguard of an online education revolution that’s altering how and where many students learn. Enrollment in full- and part-time public online programs has nearly doubled in a two-year... »
