Online High

Orion High School is an online high school working toward accreditation with both CITA and NIPSA. While new, it is working toward being a school of choice.

I received this question in my email today. The student was wondering if there was a difference in that and an online high school. “Cyber high school” is one of those terms could have been the one that made it. Another one that was in the mix was “virtual high school.”

These are both terms for what are now primarily called “online high schools.” Perhaps the second most common would be that “virtual high school” one. I rarely see the “cyber” one anymore. For a while, though, people were attaching “cyber” to anything related to the Internet. While I won’t call the term dead because it is certainly still out there, it has suffered from overuse, that is certain.

However, for our purposes here, all three terms - online, virtual, cyber - are synonyms. There is no difference at all.

If you are considering a Christian online high school, I would encourage you to read this interview with a parent of a Liberty University Online Academy student.

Yet one more reason to go to an online high school.

The relevant quote from the Hays Daily News:

“When there was a chance for her to do online high school, it was such a relief,” she said. “We don’t have to worry about what time she starts her school work.”

Hoosier Academy-Indianapolis is due to open in the fall of 2008. It will begin as a K-10 school and move to expand to K-12.

One type of online high school that can get ignored are those that are housed at universities. Often these schools have some interesting advantages such as dual credit where you can get credit for a course both for high school and for college.

We now have a significant number of these schools on the BestOnlineHighSchools.com website. They include:

University of Missouri High School
Liberty University Online Academy
EPGY, Stanford University
Indiana University High School
Kaplan University High School
National University Virtual High School
Oregon State University K-12 Online
Oklahoma State University K-12 Distance Learning Academy
Portland State University Independent Study
Texas Tech University High School
University of Oklahoma High School
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Independent Study High School
University of Texas High School

For now, Illinois boasts only one free online high school. Chicago Virtual Charter School is currently available for students in grades K-10. This is common that schools will start with not all of the grades and work toward adding more. The school uses the curriculum of K12.com.

I know there are some of you that look to me for all things online high schools (because you nice people write and tell me). However, there are people around that I look to for much the same. One of those people is Jamie Littlefield, guide of About.com’s Distance Learning site.

On her site today, she has a good article on the different types of online high schools. Go have a look, will you?

Idaho is a small state with big offerings of free online high schools. It has seven, some that are part of national companies and others that are more local. They include:

Idaho Digital Learning Academy is sponsored by the Idaho State Department of Education.

Idaho Distance Education Academy’s primary focus is working with the home educator.

Idaho Virtual Academy is part of the K12.com family of online schools.

Inspire: Idaho Connections Academy is yet another iteration of the Connections Academy group of schools.

iSucceed Virtual High School is one of the Insight Schools owned by the same folks who own the University of Phoenix.

Richard McKenna Charter High School is a public charter school.

What you just missed was the latest edition of Online High Schools Digest. This issue featured Liberty University Online Academy.

Want to get the next issue? All that you need to do is go here and enter your email address in the box on the left.

Easy.