Executive Summary. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Independent Study High School. Mr. Barry Stark, Principal 2100 Vine Street Lincoln, NE

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1 University of Nebraska-Lincoln Independent Study High School Mr. Barry Stark, Principal 2100 Vine Street Lincoln, NE Document Generated On January 10, 2013

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Description of the School 2 School's Purpose 4 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement 5 Additional Information 7

3 Introduction Every school has its own story to tell. The context in which teaching and learning takes place influences the processes and procedures by which the school makes decisions around curriculum, instruction, and assessment. The context also impacts the way a school stays faithful to its vision. Many factors contribute to the overall narrative such as an identification of stakeholders, a description of stakeholder engagement, the trends and issues affecting the school, and the kinds of programs and services that a school implements to support student learning. The purpose of the Executive Summary (ES) is to provide a school with an opportunity to describe in narrative form the strengths and challenges it encounters. By doing so, the public and members of the school community will have a more complete picture of how the school perceives itself and the process of self-reflection for continuous improvement. This summary is structured for the school to reflect on how it provides teaching and learning on a day to day basis. Page 1

4 Description of the School Describe the school's size, community/communities, location, and changes it has experienced in the last three years. Include demographic information about the students, staff, and community at large. What unique features and challenges are associated with the community/communities the school serves? The UNL Independent Study High School (ISHS) is an accredited distance education high school serving a diverse student population of approximately 2,500 students, representing all 50 states and 130 countries. The ISHS is located on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and has been in continuous operation since ISHS students may choose to earn their high school diplomas through the ISHS or transfer ISHS credits to earn their diplomas through their local high schools. The ISHS serves students who may be athletes or performers; whose individual learning needs best fit online instruction; who want a rigorous, college prep program in a home setting; who are more comfortable away from the "brick and mortar" building; who want "anytime-access" to their courses and prefer to work at their own pace; who want to fill curriculum gaps in their local high school schedules or who may want to accelerate their credit-earning. Public and private high schools, learning centers, military organizations and home school programs also use the ISHS to supplement course offerings and to meet students' additional academic needs. The features of the ISHS include Nebraska Department of Education accreditation (since 1968); North Central Association/AdvancED acreditation (since 1978) and NCAA course approval (since 2005). The ISHS provides membership for all students (upon enrollment) in the ISHS Student Council, an affiliate of the National Association of Student Councils (NASC). The ISHS offers the NASC Leadership Certification Program at no cost to any enrolled student. The Independent Study High School has an overall Director, a staff of twenty-two teachers (all holding valid Nebraska teaching certificates and teaching in their endorsed areas), a curriculum team (an assistant director and three instructional design tech specialists), one Academic Advisor, and one Principal. The Advisor and Principal hold valid Nebraska counseling and administrative certificates, respectively, with 7-12 endorsements. An Operations Team in the University of Nebraska's Office of Online and Distance Education provides customer service and technical support, and two other departments also assist with ISHS operations--business Affairs and Marketing. Each of these departments contributes to the success of our program. The ISHS has undergone significant changes in the past three years. Since February, 2012, the ISHS has gained Tier I status for any ISHS graduates seeking military enlistment. The ISHS diploma is recognized by all branches of the military as meeting enlistment requirements for high school graduates. Prior to requesting a review of our program by the Department of Defense (with assistance from Senator Nelson's office), our program was considered a Tier 2 program, similar to a GED program. That meant that all branches of the military required our graduates to earn 15 hours of college credit in order to be eligible to enlist. The other option was to wait until the Department of Defense "opened an enlistment window" allowing Tier 2 students the opportunity to enlist. Those windows were never guaranteed, and it was a waiting game to see if they would be offered. Distance education programs that have qualified for state-accreditation are now considered Tier 1. All Independent Study HS courses are aligned with the Nebraska Standards and the Common Core Standards. We have also chosen to meet, and in many cases exceed, inacol (International Association for K-12 Online Learning) National Standards of Quality for Online Courses. The ISHS core courses meet NCAA approval. In order to meet compliance, we incorporated a gating and sequencing component in all our Page 2

5 courses. As of August 1, 2012 we also implemented randomized testing for all of our courses. Sequencing requires a student to submit each assignment in the order in which it appears in a course. This feature promotes a sequential instructional process as well as providing an orderly and structured learning pattern for each course. Gating requires that a student may only submit one assignment per course per 24-hour period. The system will not allow receipt of the final test in less than 5 weeks from the date of the first submitted assignment. This guarantees a minimum course completion time of 5 weeks. The on-going challenges for ISHS are: To continue to review and upgrade current course offerings. To develop and introduce new courses that meet our students' academic needs. To continue to meet accreditation standards of the Department of Education and AdvancED. To continue to increase our student enrollment. (Increasing enrollment is always a critical challenge because we are completely tuitionbased and receive no tax or University financial support). To improve our use of data in continuing quality efforts. Page 3

6 School's Purpose Provide the school's purpose statement and ancillary content such as mission, vision, values, and/or beliefs. Describe how the school embodies its purpose through its program offerings and expectations for students. The ISHS Mission Statement says we will "meet the educational needs of average to high ability students by providing quality distance education opportunities." We are committed to serving students anytime, anywhere. With that as our mission, our purpose continues to be to meet diverse student learning styles by delivering instruction of a rigorous, college preparatory curriculum for students pursuing their high school diplomas in an online environment. Most of our students enroll in our program because they plan to attend college upon earning their ISHS diplomas. The primary value that the Independent Study HS has provided for over 80 years is that our program offers a rigorous, college preparatory high school curriculum that is intended to prepare students for their college academic experiences. The content of our courses, the higher level thinking and questioning, the projects, unit evaluations and the progress tests, and the alignment of all our core courses with the Nebraska and the Common Core Standards all serve as evidence that our courses are academically rigorous. ISHS students' educational needs are met academically, and the program offers services to help students in every stage of the ISHS experience. The academic requirements of our courses prepare students for college academically and also develop a strong foundation for online learning that will be required at the collegiate level. To fulfill our mission, we have designed our program to accommodate students' educational needs. The course format is completely online, self-paced and allows students up to one year from the enrollment date to complete each course. These features allow the student complete flexibility in meeting employment requirements, athletic or performing arts participation, or community/civic involvement. With the feature of either pursuing a diploma through the ISHS or transferring credits back to their local high school to earn their diplomas, the mission goal of meeting students' (specific) needs is accomplished. The value of the ISHS program is measured in several areas. With 83 years of service to students, the program has evolved into a 21st century cutting edge high school program. There are 102 course offerings, including core courses, electives, world language courses, and AP courses. From a service perspective, our courses will be able to fill curriculum gaps in local high schools where no staff would be available for instruction; provide for expanded curriculum to meet requirements in smaller schools with fewer electives; and offer courses that are very economically effective, greatly reducing the cost in relationship to hiring an FTE. The ISHS offers a solution for alternative education when a student's schedule does not allow for regular attendance or other issues make alternative education a better academic option. Additional program values that are meaningful for all students include: unit evaluations, teacher connect activities and projects are "open book" and require only the student's individual input; the progress tests require a proctor's presence to monitor the test-taking and ensure test integrity; course access is available 24/7, 365 days per year, and as long as the student has internet access, these web-based courses are completely portable, world-wide; unit evaluations and Progress Tests are computer-graded with grades generated immediately. Page 4

7 Notable Achievements and Areas of Improvement Describe the school's notable achievements and areas of improvement in the last three years. Additionally, describe areas for improvement that the school is striving to achieve in the next three years. These significant achievements occurred within the past three years: In spring, 2011, we implemented gating and sequencing for all of our courses. Gating controls the number of assignments that can be submitted in a 24-hour period to one assignment per student, per course. The other feature of the gating component does not allow the final test to be accepted prior to five (5) weeks after that course's first assignment was submitted. This feature guarantees that no course can be completed in less than five weeks, which is an NCAA requirement. Sequencing was introduced at the same time as gating. Sequencing requires that each assignment per course must be submitted in the exact order as it occurs in the course. These two features are within the LMS and cannot be by-passed. We implemented teacher-connect activities in all core courses. These activities require online communication between students and their instructors throughout each course. This implementation met NCAA requirements for adequate student-teacher communication in each course. The next feature, which was met with almost universal approval when it was introduced in Summer, 2012, was randomized testing. This procedure was the result of teachers and curriculum team staff members developing a test-question bank for each course. There are 150 test questions per course, per test. When a proctor accesses his/her student's test in any course, the system will randomly select and place the test questions exclusively for that student. With test questions selected and put on the student's test paper, the odds of two tests coming out exactly the same are astronomical! This process specifically protects the integrity of our testing program and generally provides a level of security for our entire program. In November, 2011, I contacted Sen. Nelson's office asking for his assistance in gaining Tier 1 status for the ISHS. In February, 2012, we received notification from the Department of Defense that, effective in July, 2012, all accredited online schools would be approved in the same Tier 1 category as accredited "brick and mortar" local high schools. The ISHS received the USDLA's (U.S. Distance Learning Association) Best Practice Award in 2011 and The ISHS has also earned a UPCEA (University Professional and Continuing Education Association) K-12 course award each year for the past ten years. The ISHS offered a one-time Nebraska Virtual Scholarship Program during the school year with support from UNL President Milliken's office. The program was open to all Nebraska High Schools through an application process. The courses selected and all books/materials were provided at no cost to the schools. All courses were made available for the schools to use. The variety of courses selected was extensive, ranging from AP Calculus to Business Communication. When the program began in the fall of 2011, there were a total of 72 course enrollments from 24 schools from across Nebraska. Every school that applied was awarded at least one enrollment, with most schools receiving more if requested. It was concluded to be highly successful, with several of the recipient high schools enrolling students in courses for the school year. Our school has won national-level awards for curriculum in each of the last nine years. In this last year, our science curriculum received Page 5

8 silver recognition from the US Distance Learning Association. The impact of these prestigious awards can be seen in our overall student performance. Our students continue to score above the national average on the ACT testing. Within the next three years, our plan is to complete improvements in three areas: We are revising our LMS system to provide better portal access for students & schools; there will be an investment in greater professional development; we will improve on and expand the use of data for our academic and curricular decisions. Page 6

9 Additional Information Provide any additional information you would like to share with the public and community that were not prompted in the previous sections. NO ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Page 7