One reason is that not every student has the initiative needed to stay on task and online. In its first two years, the Florida High School had an alarmingly high class-drop rate of close to 50 percent. English teacher Carol Alves says. Word got around that the online classes were no Caribbean cruise. The course drop rate is now down to 20 percent.
Teachers call each student at least once a month, more often if they are lagging.
There are no pop quizzes, no lectures, no class discussions, no Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the day. Students work their way through a course in chunks that are sent to them via e-mail. They reply in kind to the teacher for grading and feedback once they have finished. Some cyberschools try to simulate a traditional high school environment with such amenities as online chess clubs and virtual yearbooks. But from the outset, a priority of designing classes at the Florida High School has been to fuse traditional teaching methods with what the Internet offers.