The Battle Continues for Ontario eLearning

This press release from Ottawa Carleton E-School just arrived - detailing the continued battle with the Ontario Ministry of Education as discussed last week:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Annette Levesque
Principal
Ottawa Carleton E-School
Phone: 1-866-325-3276 x 708
Fax: 1-613-482-4576
principal@ottawacarletone-school.ca
www.ottawacarletone-school.ca

eSCHOOL BATTLES ONTARIO FOR RIGHTS IN EDUCATION

[Ottawa, ON, Jan 14, 2008] - An Ontario private school that offers accredited high school courses through the internet is appealing a new Ontario Ministry of Education policy preventing it from teaching students outside the province.  “These courses are not publicly funded by the Ontario government, and yet the government appears to be creating a barrier to prevent other Canadian and non-resident children from accessing them,” says Annette Levesque, principal of Ottawa Carleton E-School and Canada eSchool.

In November, the school received a copy of the 2007-8 school inspection guidelines which included the new policy. A “cease and desist” letter from the Ministry came shortly after prompting the school to immediately stop enrolling non-Ontario students, including students from neighbouring Gatineau, Que. 

An estimated 15 per cent of the students enrolled in these private schools live outside the province, and neither school is accepting any more out-of-province students while they appeal the policy. The schools offer 49 accredited Ontario high school courses online, and serves many students with disabilities and those who live in rural and under-serviced areas across the country. “We fill a need for children who need an alternative way of gaining access to high school credit courses and can’t get them through regular channels in their local system.”

Requests have gone unanswered -  Levesque sent an open letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty Tuesday, asking him to reverse Ontario’s new policy for online distance education. “We can’t seem to get any additional information from the Ministry at this time, We’ve submitted formal correspondence requesting a hearing on this matter, however there has been no response to any of our requests.  It’s our sense that it might be something that actually ends up in a court.”  

 “Distance Education courses hold many benefits to both Ontario and out-of-province students,” says Annette Levesque. “With students enrolling from around the world, we can have enough students for a course that wouldn’t normally be offered in under-developed areas. Students outside of Ontario gain access to an education they need, and local students have the unique opportunity to share their classroom with students from Canada, and around the world. Students can be discussing a given days lesson with classmates in Alberta, Antigua and Moscow!”

Ottawa Carleton e-School’s Principal, Annette Levesque, was recently on the CBC’s “Ottawa Morning” show to discuss the impact this policy is having on students, and copies of the interview are available online, as well as an accompanying article on the CBC website. For more information on the implementation of this policy, visit our press page at www.ottawacarletone-school.ca.

Ottawa Carleton E-School & Canada eSchool are Ontario based private schools that have been recognized as Ontario e-learning leaders. Both are dedicated to assisting students across Canada by providing access to accredited Ontario High School distance education courses. These credits are required by students to complete their high school diplomas, and are essential prerequisites for College and University programs. Students include regular day school students, mature students, international students, and students with health related issues that keep them from the traditional school classroom. The schools also work with many public schools, private schools, tutoring centres and various other institutions (i.e. treatment centers, hospitals and group homes), to assist students with special learning needs that require flexible start dates and the ability to set a modified pace in their course. The academic programs consist of 49 accredited high school distance education courses and have been a great asset to students living in rural and remote areas of Canada that do not have a wide variety of high school courses available to them.

This boggles my mind - a private school being told who they can and cannot do business with.

eSchool Stats in the US

Last week’s episode of “SuperNanny” included a scene with two girls engaged in online learning. However, it was a very different view than what I have come to know about the online systems here in Ontario. One of the interesting pieces in the fall-out from that episode, however, is some statistics about eLearning at the High School level in the United States.

According to the North American Council on Online Learning:

More than 90 percent of public colleges and universities offer online courses, and high schools have offered virtual learning for more than a decade. Virtual schools served 700,000 students in the 2005-06 school year, mostly at the high school level in the United States.

These are US Stats, but interesting nonetheless. Obviously eLearning is a staple of “higher” education, yet adoption at the High School level seems to remain painfully slow.

Restricted access to private elearning?

Just read on the CBC Ottawa website about a policy preventing Ontario online high schools from offering courses to students outside of Ontario.

An Ottawa private school that offers courses through the internet is appealing Ontario Ministry of Education regulations that ban it from offering credits to students outside the province.

“There just doesn’t seem to be any consideration given to all of these students,” Annette Levesque, principal of the Ottawa Carleton E-School, told CBC’s Ottawa Morning on Wednesday. “We can’t seem to get any information from the ministry at all and it’s our sense that it might be something that actually ends up in a court.”

Levesque estimated more than 15 per cent of the students enrolled in the school live outside the province, but the school will not accept any more out-of-province students while it is appealing the regulations.

The school offers 49 courses online, and Levesque said it serves many students with disabilities and many who live in rural areas across the country.

“It’s very hard to find something comparable within the other provinces,” she said.

Levesque sent an open letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty Tuesday, asking him to reverse Ontario’s new policy for online education, which she first heard about in January 2007, through a voice mail from the Ministry of Education.

Patricia McNeil, a spokeswoman for the ministry, told CBC News that the government’s position is that private schools do not have jurisdiction outside of the province “and do not have the authority to grant Ontario secondary school diplomas or credits to students who are not residing in Ontario.”

She added that there is an exception for 28 schools that have a special agreement with the Ontario government.

But Levesque alleges the government does not have that kind of legal authority over private schools.

“The Education Act states the agreement between a student and a private school [is] a private contract,” she said.

‘Cease and desist’ letter sent

Getting on the list of schools that are excepted from the regulations is almost impossible, she said.

“The average tuition rates from those schools range between $20,000 and $30,000 a year,” she said. “Our courses are $399 a course. They just don’t seem to be happy that we refuse to … move into that elitist model of education.”

The Ottawa Carleton E-School, an accredited private school, opened five years ago and is inspected every other year by a local education officer hired by the ministry.

In November, months after receiving the voice mail, the school received a copy of the new online education guidelines along with the province’s new school inspection guidelines, Levesque said.

A month later, the school received a “cease and desist” letter from the ministry, prompting it to stop enrolling non-Ontario students, including students from neighbouring Gatineau, Que. However, the school is allowing non-Ontario students already enrolled in courses to complete them.

From how this reads, it means that Ontario’s ministry of education is effectively saying that e-learning is all good, except that it has to be geographically limited to the geopolitical limits of the Province of Ontario. The Internet allows us to finally break across these boundaries for communications, business and personal uses, but not for education?

My question is: If the ministry inspections indicate that the courses are good enough for Ontario students, why don’t they feel that they are good enough for the world? It’s not like Ontario taxpayers are paying for this, it’s a private school (and unlike some Provinces such as BC, private schools don’t get any public funding in Ontario).

Study on eSchool and Community Involvement

An interesting study is taking place in Wisconsin regarding online schooling and community involvement.

Lawrence University government professor Arnold Shober wants to learn more about why elementary and secondary students choose online schooling and how it affects their potential for community involvement.
…
His main question, he said, is what the likelihood is that these students will become civically engaged in their communities down the road.

“The stereotype is that they are isolated from the world, but that’s not necessarily the case,” he said.

In my experience, the students taking online courses aren’t the isolated ones, but instead the ones who are looking to excel or who are making up courses for those they had problems with in the traditional school system. I’m interested to see what this study discovers.

The original article appears at the Appleton Post-Crescent.