At the Chinook School Division board meeting on Monday, Feb 13, the Principal of the Distance Education reported to the board.

The school, which offers online classes, has run for more than 10 years and started with 80 students in 2006. At the beginning of the 2016/17 school year, they have 1,000 students enrol in a variety of courses.

Shelby Budd, Principal of the school, looks at enrollment numbers and discusses the implication they have.

"We have kind of watched our growth over the last seven or eight years, it's exciting to see because we know it's working for our students," she said. "If we can reach those kinds of numbers knowing we are serving our

small town schools and maintaining our success rate, those things have to line up, numbers are irrelevant if, all of a sudden, we start to see a drop in our success rate." Budd added, "What we've seen instead is at least

maintenance and we saw a bit of improvement last semester so we are encouraged by that and we know we are going in the right direction with our students."

Budd says they have just arrived at the 97% completion rate for students. This surpasses the goal of 96% that the school has. They have maintained a 96% completion rate for the last 2 years. Students from around the

Chinook School district can access 59 courses offered in a variety of teaching styles.

Some courses are just read the information and answer questions, while other courses have active lectures recorded from teachers that students can watch and see how to do the specifics, of an assignment.

Students can make a video of what they are doing and hand that in as part of the course.

Budd feels that they could soon become a victim of their own success as the school has maxed the number of students that can enrol in certain classes.

 

Shelby Budd discusses enrollment in cyber school