Online High School Programs: How Are They Benefiting The Rural Schooling?

In the last century, around 150,000 schools were shut down in the U.S. in the wake of mishandled budgets. In the conventional sense, schools with a bigger premises and lavish classrooms were associated with impeccable education. Such a though process didn’t turn out too well and resulted in diseconomies of scale due to an increased non-instructional staff (Not requiring the teacher’s licensure), resulting in a declining teaching quality.

The rural schooling has been bearing the brunt of shrinking local tax bases, a disrupted chain of funding between the federal and state education, a frail recruitment process that has incapacitated the retention of quality teachers, and the out-migration of young people and professionals. Despite such difficulties, online high school programs are helping rural schools to flourish. 

These programs are providing a level playing field for students in rural areas. They are proving their worth to principals in seeking out highly trained faculty for the popular subjects including advanced math, physical sciences, foreign languages and computer science. The integrated online classrooms allows the rural schools to widen their pool of courses and expose rural students to an impeccable and well-knitted content.  Rural high schools are increasingly collaborating with statewide virtual high schools, and are working with national providers as well.  

Online learning allows teachers an access to the most sophisticated technology and tools to communicate with students as well as senior teachers or subject experts anytime and anywhere. Moreover, students can take their own time for coming to the terms with course intricacies, simultaneously prepping up their technical and literary competencies.

Many rural schools are also going for the flex model in which the essential instructions are propagated online with on-site theoretical support, application of knowledge, and extracurricular activities. In some courses, particularly those with teachers at a distance, they may remain part of a virtual cohort. 

The overall broadband access is improving but still hasn’t penetrated enough in rural areas. The 11 percent of rural residents in Ohio don’t have access to home broadband service that hampers the streaming of classroom lectures. Expediting the process of broadband adoption and technology use for education can facilitate a wider variety of courses, virtual schools, and collaborative learning opportunities outside of their immediate communities to rural students.