When a student falls behind the required curriculum, the outcome can be devastating. That’s why last week the board of trustees authorized a new online PLATO Learning System for the alternative education program aimed toward high school students.

“The purpose of the program will be for credit recovery, and also hopefully preventing drop outs,” said Sidney Superintendent of Schools Doug Sullivan. “There are students who have a difficult time functioning in the regular school environment for a variety of reasons, and it’s our hope that we’ll be able to help these students stay in school and get a diploma from Sidney High School.” According to its Web site, PLATO Learning provides a wide range of products to assist learning and teaching needs “from intervention and credit recovery to innovative and teacher-facilitated solutions for traditional classroom instruction to trend-forward distance learning options.”

The school district has had previous alternative programs, but the online courses will require students to set goals. “They can achieve as fast as they want to, but the work still has to be accomplished to advance from one lesson to the next,” Sullivan said. “In the PLATO Learning System, the student has to demonstrate 80 percent proficiency on the previous lesson. If you don’t get 80 percent, then you have to go back and do it over.” The online computer-based system offers 46 classes in various subjects. Six new classes are currently being worked on. “We have had alternative education programs in the past that were funded through grants, but the grants have run out and the lack of adequate state funding prevents us from putting it into our general fund budget,” Sullivan said.

Now that oil revenue has come in, there’s excess funding for the program. A middle school program has already been in place for two years. Sullivan says the target date to begin the program is January 2009, although the school is hoping to begin sooner.

Currently, the district is advertising for an employee to organize the program. Sullivan said he expects between six and 12 students who will take the online courses.

Sullivan said, “We always have a student here or there that will quit high school needing one or two credits to graduate. So, hopefully, we’ll be able to retrieve some of those students and bring them back in and get them the necessary instruction to get the diploma.”