Charter high school offers on-line plus classroom instruction

For years ‘hybrid’ has been a term associated with cars, but Sequoia’s charter school is incorporating the term into their educational model.

On Aug. 10 the Valley-based school organization opened the doors to its first, blended on-line and classroom charter high school.

Maricopa’s charter high school, located at 21476 N. John Wayne Pkwy, offers two time slots, 8 a.m. to noon and noon to 4:15 p.m., for youth looking for an alternative to the traditional high school setting.

“Students at our school could potentially work a full-time job in conjunction with completing their high school diploma,” said the school’s principal, Jonathan Gentile.

During those four hours of classroom time, students take four different, one-credit classes toward fulfilling the 20 credits required for graduation.

The state requires four English credits, two math credits, two-and-a-half social studies credits, two science credits and two fine arts credits. The remainder of the 20 credits can be chosen from the school’s online catalog of electives. Several of the available courses count for both college and high school credit.

“Four credits a year only adds up to 16 credits so at some point students need to increase their load,” Gentile said. To earn additional credits, students can log on to their account at home or increase the pace at which they complete their online coursework.

“If students work at a fast enough pace, a year long class can be completed in a semester,” Gentile said. However, he added that many of the classes won’t allow that type of pace, and it would be unrealistic to expect students to maintain that type of pace their entire high school career. “It would burn them out,” he said.

Students spend the majority of their time sitting behind a computer terminal; three highly qualified teachers roam the lab, prepared to answer any questions. To supplement this electronic learning, four times a week students are pulled into a more standardized classroom to focus on math and English exercises.

“Studies show online students tend to read more while traditional students tend to write more, so we try to balance it out by requiring our students to write several research papers,” Gentile said.

An open house at the school will be held this Wednesday, Aug. 26, from 5 to 7 p.m. The school has a maximum capacity of 42 students per session and still has openings for the current school year.

For more information call 520-423-9130.

Photo by Michael K. Rich