On-line education kept Apolo Ohno on fast track

Apolo Ohno on fast track with Online Education

By Erica Jahn

Every well-rounded young athlete needs an education to go along with the physical skill. However, training and competing seasons don’t often mesh with the standard school day.

That’s where Federal Way’s Internet Academy comes in.

The only on-line, core-course based school in the Puget Sound region, the Internet Academy provides 105 classes for students who, for a variety of reasons, can’t attend school during the traditional school day.

The Academy’s most famous student right now is Apolo Ohno, the Olympic short track skater who is taking Salt Lake by storm this year. But Wendy Nevin, an Internet academy teacher who worked with Ohno during high school, said the academy helps a number of athletes and performance artists for whom pursuing their dreams is a full-time endeavor.

Students enrolled at the academy include speed skaters, a professional soccer player, figure skaters, hockey players, gymnasts, swimmers, some ballerinas with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and players with the Seattle Youth Symphony.

Nevin said she even had a couple students who were equestrian barrel racers.

While the Internet Academy has allowed many athletes and performers to practice and compete, Nevin said only a small minority of students enrolled at the academy are pursuing special interests.

Students leaving Puget Sound for foreign exchange programs use the Internet Academy to keep up with their core courses while they travel to other parts of the world.

Students coming into the district in mid-semester sign up for the academy to participate and continue learning until they can jump into the next semester with the rest of their new classmates.

Students who come upon a serious medical condition can keep up with their studies while they get treatment or convalesce.

Most of the students are associated with a building somewhere, even though they’re learning, doing homework and studying at night or on the weekends.

The academy doesn’t issue diplomas. Though it offers 105 different courses, most are kindergarten through 12th grade core classes — English, math, science and history.

The on-line classes are available at any time, which means students who need to take a class out of sequence to get a prerequisite or to graduate on time can enroll at the Internet Academy.

Internet Academy students also have the luxury of self-paced learning — assuming they’re making enough progress to meet the grade requirements to be eligible to move up to the next grade at the end of the year.

The Internet Academy administers the fourth, seventh and 10th grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests, though most of the part-time students take the test at one of the schools.

The academy is part of Federal Way Public Schools, meaning any student can take the classes. There are no eligibility requirements and the academy does not request transcripts.

Students are, however, required to meet with a counselor at one of the schools to ensure they’re keeping up with their studies and earning the credits they need. Most of the students also are required to take some classes in the schools. Physical education, for example, is a graduation requirement not offered through the Internet Academy.

Nevin said 75 percent of the students who complete their classes do so with As and Bs. The self-paced flexibility has a lot to do with that, she said — if students need longer to work on an assignment, they can take the time to master it rather than simply moving forward with the rest of the class.

Academy teachers also don’t accept work that doesn’t meet standards, she said. Teachers will correct mistakes and send work back to students for revisions to ensure they’re really learning the material.

Some have wondered how teachers know the students’ work is genuine, considering teachers sometimes rarely see students, communicating primarily by e-mail.

Nevin said it’s not that hard to tell if a student submits unauthentic work.

Students are given an orientation assignment that allows teachers to get to know the students — and their communication and writing styles — from the first day.

“It’s amazing how unique writing styles are,” Nevin said.

If something later comes in that doesn’t match a student’s style, the academy owns software that teachers can use to check where a student’s computer has been and whether a student pulled an essay or information from the Web.

As a preventive measure, Nevin said teachers assign relatively obscure readings and assignments that would lead to a dearth of Web information.

But the best measure is parental involvement, which Nevin said Internet Academy teachers and staff encourage above all.

The academy also provides a Web site where parents can check students’ progress and grades on-line.

E-mail provides the primary avenue of communication among teachers, students and parents, which works well for students on the move.

Nevin never met Ohno in person — she only exchanged e-mail messages with him while he was Internet Academy student. It wasn’t until television coverage of his athletic success that she saw what he looked like.

“He was really a lot of fun,” Nevin said. “The guy you see on TV comes through in e-mail.”

She said Ohno was a good student who kept up with his schoolwork and took correction well. She thinks his involvement in in-line speed skating and later short track speed skating on ice contributed to his academic performance.

A lot of what he was learning in athletics transferred to academics, she said. He knew that to succeed, he had to practice, set goals for himself and work hard to achieve them.

It paid off.

“We would tease him about being in the Olympics,” Nevin said. “We’d say we would want his autograph.”

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