class.com Partners to Provide Summer School Courses; Lincoln Northeast High School Students Succeed with Online Courses

Business Wire, Sept 5, 2000

Education/Assignment Reporters & Computer Technology Writers

LINCOLN, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 5, 2000

class.com, inc., the nation's first fully accredited virtual high school, and Lincoln Northeast High School, Lincoln, Nebraska, declared their summer school program a resounding success. class.com provided online courses and teacher support for the session.

Lincoln Northeast High School offered class.com courses this summer as a pilot program. Previously, students who wanted or needed to go to summer school had to travel across town to another school to attend classes. This is prohibitive to many students from Northeast High School.

Discussing class.com courses, John Skretta, Coordinator at Lincoln Northeast High School, said, "This is a great program, I can recommend it without reservation. class.com courses deliver instruction online, allowing us to move outside the box of traditional classroom instruction. The online instruction delivery addresses the situations where the classroom is not accommodating to students with different learning rates and abilities."

"The students selected the ways they would use the class.com courses," said Deb Venema, Computer Technician at Northeast High School, "and each one's needs were supported in a certain way. Students wanting to take enrichment classes during the school year, such as music or drama, took required courses this summer in order to free up time during the fall semester. There were also seniors who needed credit to graduate, or freshmen who needed credit to move along with their classmates to sophomore live classes who took advantage of the class.com courses in order to meet their goals. It's been a neat experience to watch students feel good about themselves and their work."

Students have a full year to finish the course, and this flexibility helps a lot of students. Some push to finish, others who give up in the regular classroom because they need more time than the others accept the responsibility and keep going on their own schedule.

Another factor noted was the ability to access class.com online courses for special needs, such as languages or accelerated classes that may not be taught locally.

"Every time I called class.com they were always there, they always had the answer and were always willing to help," said Venema. "Student emails to class.com were immediately responded to and they were excellent when it came to helping us with the email and preference set up challenges. class.com is always open to ideas -- they think education is important and find ways and means to do it."

Lincoln Northeast High School had an almost 80% completion rate for the summer school program, with only one student dropping a course. A few students continue to work towards completion.

"class.com is pleased to provide Northeast High School's summer school program with ongoing secondary teacher and technical support, and we applaud those schools and districts who look for solutions for their students outside the box," said John Blair, class.com President and CEO. "class.com remains involved and active in the ongoing design and delivery of high quality courses for students everywhere."

About class.com Courses

class.com represents the way of the future by providing courses without boundaries at anytime or anyplace. Using the Internet as a common and readily available delivery mechanism, courses can be updated on an on-going basis and students can learn at their own pace and direction. class.com offers core courses such as math, science, English and social studies in addition to business and career planning.

class.com courses provide a direct interaction between students and teachers. By using a standard web browser, students access course material that takes full advantage of advanced multimedia technologies. Students can log on and learn any time and anywhere there is a PC and an Internet connection.

Students view a combination of text, animated graphics, audio and video materials. A unique design and seamless navigational system encourages individualized discovery and learning. Downloading times are minimized by storing pictures, videos, and interactive graphics for off-line access. An online binder or notebook allows a student to take notes and store course materials in both text and multimedia formats for later reference.

About class.com, inc.

Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska with area offices in Atlanta and San Francisco, class.com is a privately held company delivering online educational courses over the Internet for high school students throughout the world. The courses are offered under the direction of a fully accredited, university-based independent study high school as part of a full diploma program or for transfer to a student's current high school for diploma credit.

As the premier provider of Internet-based online education, class.com is committed to providing quality education over the Internet using the most innovative and advanced technology available. For more information, class.com may be reached at 888/482-5598 or 415/495-5009. The class.com web site is located at www.class.com