Despite closing the doors on its alternative education center in May, the Humboldt school district will continue to serve diploma seeking adults, but now, students can get a USD 258 education from anywhere in the world.
USD 258 Virtual Education Program, about to undergo its first year of implementation in the district, provides high school dropouts wanting to go back to school to earn a high school degree that opportunity, said VEP director Jody Siebenmorgen.
“I truly believe everybody deserves a second chance,” Siebenmorgen said. “For whatever reason a student makes a choice to not finish high school, many of them, later on, have found the importance of education.”
Someone with a high school diploma, on average, earns $9,000 more per year than their dropout counterparts, a significant amount of money over the course of a career, or even generations.
“You tend to see a patterns from within a family — maybe Grandma didn’t graduate and possibly mom didn’t graduate, “ Siebenmorgen said. “I’d like to break that chain to where these adults can get their high school diploma and look at their children and say ‘I went back and did this. It’s very important and you will also stay in school and get your high school diploma.’”
The program is also open to home school students grades 6 through 12.
As an extra incentive, the district is prepared to purchase a $500 laptop computer for each student enrolling in the program. Upon completing the program and graduating from Humboldt High School, students will become the official owners of the laptops.
ALL COURSE work, lessons and lectures will be provided online through Education 2020. Students, responsible for providing their own Internet supply, will have access to previously recorded lectures as well as live teachers.
“The nice thing about the lectures is the students get to see a real teacher and they can also push a button and stop it and take notes,” Siebenmorgen said. “They’ll be able to work at their own pace.”
K.B. Criss, USD 258 superintendant of schools, said with the recent closing of the alternative education center, going cyber with nontraditional student education made sense financially for the school and the students.
“Since gas is $3.69 a gallon and all the other things that pull on people’s time, we wanted to become more versatile in being able to help these diploma seeking students,” he said. “The way to do that was to take it from a nontraditional on campus setting to a virtual program.”
COST OF education, even with the $500 laptop for each student enrolled in the virtual education program, are far lower than what it costs to educate at a brick and mortar school.
“There’s a cost to educate every student. In a traditional building the cost is in personnel, utilities and instructional cost. With the student that doesn’t set foot on campus, there is still a cost,” he said. “We’re providing them with the tools and the platform they need.”
Siebenmorgen said the convenient education platform will enable more adults to get a proper education.
“It’s a flexible way to fit into anybodies schedule,” she said.
Debbie McDaniel, Iola, said if it weren’t for the convenience of the virtual school, she would never be able to squeeze an education into her hectic life. McDaniel and her husband are busy taking care of a newborn who was 10 weeks premature.
“He’s hooked up to an apnea monitor so this way I don’t have to find a sitter for him and I can stay at home,” she said.
McDaniel said although she is nervous about going back to high school after more than a decade break, she plans to go to college after graduating. The laptop will continue to serve her needs in college, she said.
As of this morning, 38 students had enrolled for the program.
For more information call Sieibenmorgen at 620-228-4186 or the USD 258 board office at 620-473-3121.
Adult students get in line to get online
