But despite a keen and probing mind, school was the problem for Mathew. In the eighth grade he flunked a couple subjects and his teachers threatened to hold him back a year. Crowded conditions and rigid classroom curriculums that left no time for questions left him despondent. His parents withdrew him from Wiley Middle School. and enrolled him in the Virtual Schoolhouse for home schooling.

A state charter school funded through the state of Ohio, Virtual Schoolhouse is a hybrid virtual and classroom-based school designed to address the needs of students in grades K-12 who are at risk for drop-out status due to economic, environmental, emotional and/or academic challenges, including physical and mental health illnesses, social disadvantage, learning disabilities, high learning aptitude and other special needs. Developed and run by an educational management company called Learning Concept, the school was originally designed to provide educational services to children in hospitals and those subject to extensive in-home medical care. Last year, an increasing student body made having a brick and mortar educational facility necessary.

Virtual no more. The new schoolhouse at 736 Lakeview Road in Glenville.

After studying with Virtual Schoolhouse online, Mathew is now attending school on premises everyday. “I think it's a better learning environment because there are fewer students for every teacher,” says Mathew. “There is freedom beyond belief here. It's not like a school where the teachers treat you like you’re a kid. Here the teachers treat you like equals and individuals - peers basically. It's way more comfortable. The only thing I don't like about it is the dress code.”

Now, instead of harried teachers who only have time to doubt his work, Mathew has support and a science teacher who believes in him. “He brought in his paper about physics which I thought was just amazing,” says Michael Tall, a biology teacher with Virtual Schoolhouse. “Because most of the kids don't even have any idea what that is, much less write a paper on it, I was just amazed somebody his age was able to think and write something like that.”

At the school, children work with the Plato Learning System where they follow online tutorials on a variety of subjects. After they complete a tutorial there is an application drill where they practice problems. Once they show they can do some of the problems a “mastery test” is taken. If they pass the mastery test they can go on to the next level of information. If they don’t pass, the course takes them through additional learning modules until they take the test again. In the on-site facility, each class has teachers overseeing the work every day.

“It’s all aligned with the Ohio State curriculum as they pass levels,” says Tall. “This is sweet because an independent hard worker like Matt can go at his own pace and not be limited. I've even had students that it actually graduated a little early.”   Next > 1 2 3