<p>Students who are struggling to learn in a traditional classroom setting will now have an opportunity to attend an online school, thanks to a partnership between Indian Creek Schools and American Online Educational Services.</p>
<p>The school will serve about 50 students in seventh through 12th grade this year, and will have the same classes required for the core 40 diploma offered at Indian Creek schools, except in a virtual setting, Superintendent Tim Edsell said.</p>
<p>“This is a new endeavor for us. We want to meet the academic needs of students who are credit deficient or have special circumstances in our local community or beyond,” Edsell said, pointing out that any student in Indiana can enroll. “This curriculum will be a national curriculum. This will have its own certified teachers.”</p>
<p>Administrators form American Online Educational Services, which will provide teachers and administrators for the online school, will collect 95 percent of the money the state sends to schools when students from the virtual school are counted in September. Indian Creek schools will collect the other five percent, as school officials will be behind the scenes helping with the online school, Edsell said.</p>
<p>The online school, which has not been named yet, will use the curriculum from Edmentum, a Minnesota-based company that has partnered with more than 8,000 school districts across the country. For students in sixth through 12th grade, Edmentum offers credit recovery, career and technical education classes, college and career readiness and intervention, according to its website.</p>
<p>Edmentum will provide the teachers and curriculum for the online school and American Online Educational Services will pay their salaries from state money, said Gar Hoover, president of American Online.</p>
<p>Hoover took over the company in April, a company whose solo endeavor to that point was an online school in Michigan that is in its third year. This year, that school had a 25 percent graduation rate, but Hoover wants to change that by requiring students to be active through completing the same assignments and testing a student would complete in a traditional school, he said. </p>
<p>"A student will have to be active in every single course. If not, that student can be withdrawn," Hoover said. "A monthly progress report is sent out by teachers to parents, and students can’t just hide in a corner and not do any activity because of these requirements."</p>
<p>The online school’s classes, which cover advanced placement, world languages, electives and the core curriculum, among other areas, are counted as the equivalent of credits earned in a brick and mortar school, Edsell said.</p>
<p>Students who transfer from the online school to Indian Creek will have their credits counted, and vice versa, he said.</p>
<p>The odds of success are long when it comes to virtual schools. Indiana Virtual School, an online school with offices in Indianapolis, had a six percent graduation rate this year, according to the U.S. News and World Report.</p>
<p>“The success rate of online virtual schools is not great and yet this is not going away,” Edsell said of the increasing popularity of the schools. “This is for a variety of students who have not encountered a good experience in a brick and mortar setting.”</p>
<p>With a smaller enrollment to start off, administrators can work through any adjustments that need to be made with curriculum, and figure out how state reporting and accountability will work with a virtual school in its first year, Edsell said.</p>
<p>The ultimate goal of the school is to improve the quality of life of students struggling to learn in a traditional classroom setting, Hoover said.</p>
<p>"We want to brand ourselves as a good, quality school, helping them achieve the ability to not only graduate, but we want to make more of a connection with the business community and help students get jobs and careers," Hoover said.</p>
