Teachers at a new online charter school with only 75 students are fanning out across the state this month, meeting parents at bakeries and bookstores, trying to boost enrollment.
The school, Colorado Distance & Electronic Learning Academy, is run by Ohio- based for-profit White Hat Management. Its five teachers work out of an office in Brighton, where they hold live classes weekly and help logged-in students from Durango to Holly.
When students enroll in the school, they get a computer. All work from home.
The drive comes at a time when online charter schools are under extra scrutiny after a scathing state audit released in December showed online students were poorer performing than their peers.
Auditors also scolded online schools for sloppy accounting.
From 2003 to 2006, the number of online schools in Colorado increased from 12 to 18, and the number of students more than tripled, from 1,900 to 6,200.
Advocates for online education say the programs are good for students whose schedules don’t fit with traditional schools.
“A student contributing to the family income can log on to classes in the evenings,” said Diana Lopez, administrator for the Colorado Distance & Electronic Learning Academy, or CDELA.
Carol Smead’s son, who will be a sophomore this fall, spent about five hours online a day with the distance-learning charter school last year, she said.
Smead, who lives in the rural San Luis Valley, said the online school was a better option for her son because she didn’t like the local schools.
There are no private schools in her part of the state.
“I needed to do something to ensure he could have the quality that … I wanted him to,” she said.
Each week, every class met at least once online.
State officials will know this summer how well CDELA students did on state assessment tests in its first year.
White Hat Management receives about $5,100 per student enrolled.
The online school is operating under a contract with the Colorado Charter School Institute, which can authorize independent schools within school district boundaries.
CDELA holds its next information meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Panera Bread, 1330 Grant St. in Denver.
Staff writer Allison Sherry can be reached at 303-954-1377 or asherry@denverpost.com.
