Montana schools to offer specialty courses over Internet

Advanced physics and other specialty classes could be just a click away for thousands of public, private and home-schooled students next fall under a new distance learning program.

Thirty-five school districts are forming a statewide consortium that would allow students in one district to take classes taught in another over the Internet.

Associated Press

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/12/02/build/state/65-net-schooling.inc

A meeting is planned Friday in Helena to discuss details and brainstorm possible curriculum.

Students in the program would attend classes and interact with teachers through streaming video on a computer. Tests and assignments would be downloaded off the Web.

Education leaders hope the effort, in the works for several years, will diversify Montana’s public schools, boost sagging enrollment, and make it easier for small schools to meet stiff requirements under the No Child Left Behind education reforms.

"Children and teachers in small schools and children and teachers in large schools will benefit from this," said David Puyear, director of the Montana Rural Education Association. "What we’re proposing to do is serve as a clearinghouse of information for all districts."

Smaller districts like Westby, with 65 students, hope to broaden their limited course offerings through the program. Helena, Great Falls and other larger districts, meanwhile, need more students to boost shrinking specialty class enrollment.

"They’re carrying quite a load in trying to keep those courses going," Puyear said.

Education leaders also want to beat private distance learning companies to the punch. Several already have approached schools in Montana, but Puyear and others think distance learning should be nonprofit.

"This won’t exclude (private companies)," Puyear said. "This is not a monopoly. We just think a large part of this ought to be an offering of public schools."

Districts must invest $4,000 to join the self-governed consortium. The money will pay for technology and other startup costs, said Lance Melton, executive director of the Montana School Boards Association.

Other than public, private and home-schooled students, Melton envisions the program helping students with disciplinary problems or dropouts looking for a way back into school.

"We saw the potential for technology to provide a more level playing field for districts across the state," he said.

Chad Johnson, superintendent of schools in Melstone, signed up his district to ease problems with teacher recruitment and retention.

"This is kind of like an insurance program I guess," he said. "We still want teachers in the classroom, and we’ll do everything we can to achieve that, but now we have a program that allows us, in case that doesn’t happen, to offer the same courses."

The 35 participating districts represent one-third of Montana’s public school students, Melton said.

Districts in the distance learning consortium

Bainville

Baker

Bozeman

Butte

Charlo

Chinook

Choteau

Cut Bank

Dillon

East Helena

Ennis

Fort Benton

Frenchtown

Fromberg

Geraldine

Geyser

Glasgow

Glendive

Great Falls

Havre

Helena

Hellgate

Laurel

Manhattan

Melstone

Power

Ronan

Roundup

Savage

Shelby

Sunburst

Thompson Falls

Westby

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