Online classes in Monroe County schools' future
Justin Murphy
@citizenmurphy
Students at high schools across Monroe County may start attending class together starting next year through an online learning consortium now under development.
The Futures Project, spearheaded by the Penfield Central School District, would help solve a problem common to many districts: declining enrollment and tight staffing makes it difficult to offer some elective courses because not enough students sign up.
If only a handful of students in several districts want to take a certain course, it's likely none of their schools will offer it. But if the course is taught online, students from schools across the county can take part.
Teachers' jobs are maintained, students get more variety and districts can keep costs down.
About 60 educators from more than a dozen districts as well as BOCES 1 and 2 attended a workshop on the topic earlier this month at Penfield High School. They asked questions about course design and organizational details and got information about union impacts and teacher responsibilities.
"Online courses are going to happen," said project leader Jim Doser, a Penfield music teacher. "The question is, are we going to provide them, or is someone else?"
The teachers and administrators at the informational meeting all had similar stories of classes being restricted because of low enrollment. Churchville-Chili has about 10 courses it can't offer each year; Pittsford struggles to recruit enough students for Advanced Placement music theory.
"All school districts are pretty much in the same boat," Pittsford music teacher Tom Indiano said. "There's so much we can offer, but the student numbers don't necessarily let you have the classes."
Some districts already offer certain online courses, or blend online elements into regular courses.
The Rochester School District has a fairly extensive online curriculum, including Regents exam preparation, Advanced Placement courses and professional development for teachers, according to Jacquelyn Gilmore, an instructional technology resource teacher. She attended the workshop to see how the district could increase its online reach.
"We have teachers already invested in online learning," she said. "And it's opening up ease of access for kids who didn't have it before."
Penfield has offered some hybrid online-traditional classes, where students do independent work three days a week then discuss it together the other two days.
Trevor Canham took a class on the business of music in that format with Doser last year. Canham, now a senior at Penfield, said it helped free up his busy schedule.
"I had more time to decide what I wanted to do, like when to do homework for other classes," he said. "It's always nice to be able to do more work on my own time and be in the classroom less."
This isn't the first time districts have considered the collaborative idea, but the technology was not previously available to make it practical. The plan is to use a simple online platform — Doser called it a "website on steroids" — with technical support from BOCES.
Students would enroll in online classes just as for regular ones and would receive the same credit, Doser said. They would not all log in and "attend" a lecture at the same time as in a traditional class, but rather would check in for assignments and required materials and complete the work on their own schedule.
"The freedom (for students) is more difficult, but they survive that and it helps them get ready for college," Doser said.
Each district would be asked to offer at least two courses, hopefully with a rough equity between the number of students enrolled and the number of teachers participating from each school.
Because the software is open-source (free) and there's no physical infrastructure, the cost to districts is minimal — several hundred dollars in professional development for each teacher who participates, Doser said.
The districts who sent representatives to the informational meeting are not obligated to participate in the launch next year, but many expressed enthusiasm about the idea.
"High schools just can't ignore the new technology out there," said Churchville-Chili Principal William Geraci. "This is the world our students live in, and we need to get on board."
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