The number of students taking courses online is on the rise. According to the Sloan Foundation, which promotes online education, more than a million non-college students use some form of online learning. And that leaves some critics wondering whether these virtual classes are as effective as face-to-face instruction. New Hampshire Public Radio correspondent Sheryl Rich-Kern has the story.

Bekah Gregory is a senior at Salem High.

On this busy morning, she’s at school.

But she’s not always able to attend.

“I’ve been sick a lot and I’ve been in and out of hospitals.”

Despite her illness, Gregory is determined to graduate with the rest of her class.

To make up for missing credits, she’s been taking classes online from New Hampshire’s Virtual Learning Academy Charter School.

For the rest of the article, go to Virtual Learning Grows in N.H.

For the rest of the article, go to The Role of Charter Schools in New Hampshire

Bowen then goes on to tout the virtues of the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School in New Hampshire as a model of what he foresees for Maine. The N.H. school serves some 7,000 high school kids with an online curriculum borrowed from the Florida Virtual School.

For the rest of the article, go to The Universal Notebook: Are virtual schools real schools?

Also available to local students is the Exeter-based Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, which offers tuition-free online high school courses to New Hampshire students. Students can enroll on a part-time basis, taking courses beyond their own high school work, or full-time.

As of the 2009-10 school year, there were 816 students enrolled in charter schools in the state. State officials have been encouraging school districts, especially those in urban areas such as Nashua, to consider applying for part of the federal funding to create a charter school. Charter schools can be approved by the state Board of Education or through local authorization.

For the rest of the article, go to NH friendlier, but still ‘severely constrains charter school growth’

McKeon suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder as well as other spatial and learning disabilities, which made school extremely difficult, she said.

“It was very stressful,” McKeon said. “I would dread being in school the whole day and at the end. I would feel like I failed.”

This continued until her junior year of high school where she and her parents decided to take a new approach, online classes through the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, New Hampshire’s first statewide online high school.

In June, McKeon and 11 other students were the first-ever graduating class of the program.

High school students who reside in New Hampshire are eligible to apply and once accepted may enroll for part-time or full-time studies, tuition free.

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Wilmot, 18, was one of the first graduates of the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, an online public charter school. She graduated in June, along with 11 other students, making up the school’s first graduating class. The school is based in Exeter, but Wilmot never set foot in town, taking all of her courses from her Nashua home. She is spending her summer taking a writing class at Nashua Community College, where she will enroll full time in the fall. The class she is taking now isn’t online, but in a building with a teacher at the front of the classroom.

Going back to the old-school way of learning has been an adjustment.

“I love being around people. It’s nice and refreshing to go to a school,” Wilmot said. “But at the same time, I’m sitting there for four hours. I didn’t miss sitting in those hard chairs with a desk.”

For the rest of the article, go to Online high school grad continues education in college setting