CHAPEL HILL
The physical classroom is not the only overcrowded part of Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. High school students are rapidly enrolling in online courses provided by North Carolina Virtual Public School. There are 1,100 students enrolled in online courses in the district, and that number is growing.

“Since 2007, the school system has experienced a 200 percent increase in the number of students taking online courses,” said Stephanie Knott, the school system’s public information officer. Most students are taking the courses to accelerate their studies, but they are not opting to graduate early.

The virtual school offers advanced placement courses, which are considered to be at the college level. Middle school students can also enroll in the courses, though few do. Currently, the school district pays $355 per student for the virtual courses. Students are unrestricted when choosing which online courses they want to take. But with budget limitations and the online program’s growth, the district will have to find a new way to pay for the growing amount of students taking online courses.

Rodney Trice, the school system’s executive director of technology and instruction, said North Carolina legislation requires the district to keep online courses free for students.

“But if we continue to have unrestricted access to online classes, the fee for the classes will most likely go up,” Trice said.

Trice’s proposition to alleviate this cost is to restrict students from enrolling in whatever courses they want.  Enrollment would be restricted to courses that are not offered by the district or restricted to students experiencing scheduling conflicts.

“I don’t necessarily like this model,” Trice said. “If I had my way, I’d like to see students take any course they wanted, but I understand that courses aren’t free. You have to pay.”

But parents have the option of enrolling their students in online courses offered by other district-approved providers. The parents have to pay for these alternative programs. An example of another program the district approves of is the University of Missouri Columbia Center for Distance and Independent Study Schooling. This program, which East Chapel Hill High School has 20 students enrolled in, offers advanced placement courses and costs $270 per course.

The high demand for online courses led to the creation of a new position at all high schools in the district called the Online Learning Facilitator.

“They are mainly responsible for running computer labs at the high schools,” Trice said. “They make sure the students are registered correctly, navigate different systems and proctor tests.”

Shari Manning has worked as the online learning facilitator at East Chapel Hill High School for a year. She said when the online program started, no one knew it would gain so much attention.

“It needs to be researched and examined a little more,” Manning said. “It needs to have stricter policies and determine what courses you can take and when you can take them.”

Manning said some of the challenges of the lab are that kids don’t develop a relationship with a physical teacher, and that academic integrity is hard to maintain.

“I’ve seen kids Google the answers to quizzes,” Manning said.

But each school has teachers that host office hours to help the students, Trice said.

Manning said that the students are lucky to take the courses because they learn more about technology and multimedia. One example is that the students use an online classroom organizer called Blackboard, the same program used at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Trice said one primary benefit of online courses is that it opens up a student’s schedule.

“So the students are allowed to take a regular set of courses via the school,” Trice said, “but they can use up to two additional periods to take online courses. It allows them to explore courses or topics that they may not have had time to explore through the school days.”

Manning runs the online lab at the school throughout all seven periods of the school day. Her classes have 20 students, and that number will increase.

“These kids are extremely lucky,” Manning said. “When they do go to college they’ll have a leg up on other kids.”

This article was reported as part of the J253 Reporting and News Writing course at UNC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.