The final session that I thought was relevant to my K-12 online learning audience (see SITE 2009: K-12 Online Learning Presentations – Friday, 06 March) for both today and for the conference was:
The Chester Area Cyber School: How Innovative Technology has Transformed High School Completion for Hutterite Students
Authors:
Allen Whitlatch, South Dakota State University, USA
Maren Fischer, Chester Area School, USA
Abstract:
The Hutterites are a communal branch of the Anabaptists, and like the Amish and Mennonites, trace their roots to 1528 and the radical reformation of the 16th Century. Though the Hutterites still separate themselves from contemporary American or Canadian life; within their communities usage of modern technology is proliferating, particularly in South Dakota. The Hutterite Colonies in South Dakota had previously educated their children to the 8th grade level as common practice. Now, in conjunction with the Chester Area School of Chester South Dakota, students in 25 of the 54 colonies in South Dakota are receiving a high school education, aligned to the South Dakota State Standards, via WebCT 6 and tightly controlled intranet. Prevailing over considerable barriers along the way, Chester Area Cyber School will graduate its first class of Hutterite seniors in May of 2009.
View PowerPoint Presentation
The Chester Area Cyber School began in 2005, beginning with English 1, Pre-Algebra, Computer 1, and Physical Science. Currently 250 students across 25 Hutteries colonies across the eastern side of South Dakota, with about a half dozen teachers working at the cyber school. The Hutterites have “survived well over four centuries as a radical experiment in communal living described as ‘community of goods’”. The first language of the students is Hutterish (and I may have spelled this wrong), which is a common combination of German and Swiss – so English is a second language for them and they only begin to learn English when they begin Kindgarten in the communal school (although they continue to take one hour of German school until the age of 16).
As a community, there is a total separation of church and state, they refuse to bear arms or participate in existing social or political institutions. They are currently educated in brick-and-mortar community schools from K-8. They are primarily farmers and have become known for their incorporation of technology into their farming industry, so the cyber school to provide education was seen as a logic extension of that innovation technology use.
The program is run on an Intranet (not Internet) using WebCT. WebCT e-mail was used initially, but it allowed students to communicate with fellow students from other colonies, so the elders changed the system to only allow students to e-mail their teachers. Being run on an Intranet, students do not have access to the Internet, which hinders some of the capability of the online program.
The students take their cyber school courses in a lab-style environment within each of the colonies. Each “lab” has a full-time site facilitator or site mentor. The colonies are encompassed within a four hour drive radius.
The first class will graduate this June (June 2009) and will have 27 students. In their initial in-take years, they had a number of adult students who have enrolled. So, some classes have students that range in age from 14 years old to 40 years old.
A truely unique program…
Addendum: Allen called Maren for me after the presentation and I had a chance to follow-up on some of these items with her. Not all of the sites have full-time site facilitators. Actually, only 8 have full-time folks and most of these indviduals have some education background. At some of the sites one of the elemntary school teachers acts as the site facilitator during the evenings.
In terms of locations, the cyber school students’ “lab” is located in a variety of locations, depending on the colony. Some are located in the elementary school, some are located in another public building, while some are located in an old house on the colony.
The teachers are all based in Chester, teaching both from a single location (i.e., the school headquarters) and often from home. Teachers visit the various colony sites on a regular basis.
I guess this is kind of a 
I saw this in my RSS feed yesterday – 
