BLUESKY, Alta. – Boing, goes Shari Monner’s computer.
She pushes a button and a message comes up asking her if she wants to chat. Sure, types Shari, who begins clacking away at her keyboard.
Welcome to Cyber High. Instead of hanging around lockers talking with friends, junior high students from around the province are staring at computer screens in home offices and bedrooms chatting to their friends.
“You go in and meet them if you’re bored,” said Shari.
And just as chat sessions have become one of the most popular aspects of the school, having chat privileges taken away has become the worst punishment.
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“It’s like being grounded.”
Shari, 13, is in her first year of Cyber High and loves it. If it’s possible, the Grade 8 student wants to take high school and university through the internet.
“I personally prefer Cyber High. Your appearance doesn’t have anything to do with things,” she said.
“In public school I wasn’t the most popular person there. I’d get good marks but I wouldn’t learn much.”
Shari is one of 260 students across Alberta attending St. Gabriel Junior Cyber High School outside Edmonton. Instead of catching the bus to go to school she goes down to her basement office, turns on the computer and begins to work.
It’s the second year the school has been run on the internet by the Greater St. Albert Regional Catholic School Division. Eventually, it hopes to offer all grades on the internet, said principal Bob Holzer.
Not all students are equal
The school of the internet was designed with the concept that not all students fit into standard schools.
“With traditional schools the kids have to be there at nine. With our school they start doing work when they feel it’s most appropriate to be doing it,” said Holzer.
During a normal school week, Shari downloads assignments, writes reports, checks marks from previous assignments and chats with others at the school.
“I tend to do all school work on Thursday and Friday and goof off the rest of the week,” Shari admitted.
For some students the flexibility offered by the on-line school can be a problem. Five to 10 percent of first-year students drop out of the program, not due to ability, but lack of motivation. Some students need the structure of a school.
Pat, Shari’s mother, set up a daily schedule for Shari and her younger sister Lauri, taking Grade 6 by correspondence, that includes piano practice, walking on a treadmill and snack breaks.
Instead of a regular physical education class, the students must complete 75 hours of activity in the year, half of it with an organized sport.
“That has been a bit of a pitfall,” said Pat. The winter sports in Fairview, the closest community, are mainly figure skating or hockey, which Shari doesn’t like. For insurance liability reasons the students aren’t allowed to join in phys-ed at the local schools.
“If we lived nearer a major centre it would be easier to get those phys-ed points,” said Shari.
Little contact
Another drawback of Cyber High is the lack of social development since there is little face-to-face contact with other students and teachers.
Once Shari arranged to meet a fellow during a student get-together. She’d been chatting with the person on-line for months, but they were too shy to meet. It wasn’t until the last 15 minutes of the day they mustered up enough courage to talk.
“All of a sudden they’re shy when they meet face to face,” said Pat.
Cyber High parents often become more involved with their children’s education than most parents tend to be in conventional schools, said principal Holzer. Parents have access to school assignments and can send computer messages to teachers if problems arise.
“Parents, at any time, can be in the school,” he said.
Holzer said he fields about 10 inquiries a day from students across the province wanting to sign up. Because of Cyber High’s popularity, other school divisions in the province are looking at designing similar schools.
