Rosalia School District to offer online courses

School may not be in session, but the Rosalia School District is hard at work prepping for the 2015-16 school year, set to start in September.

Expanding its course offerings, the district will now offer online courses to more students.

Rosalia has offered online courses in the past, but those have been available primarily for students in need of credit recovery. The courses will now be available on an as-needed basis for any student, said principal Darrell Kuhn.

"It's not going to be a vehicle to avoid taking courses from teachers," said Kuhn.

Kuhn said the courses will be available for students who are unable to fit a course in their regular schedule or to be able to take a course not currently offered in the curriculum. An example of this is with business courses.

"Our business teacher retired last year, and we didn't replace him," said Kuhn. "So students could take business courses online."

Kuhn said he sees this as a tool for Rosalia to better prepare students for higher education.

"A lot of higher education is going to online courses," he said. "If we're truly preparing our kids for that next step, we're heading in the right direction."

Currently, seven or eight students are signed up for online courses for the next school year. Kuhn noted those students are focused on credit recovery, though, and he expects it to take some time before other students jump on board.

"It's going to take some getting used to from the kids," he said.

The online courses will be offered through the state's Digital Learning Department. A newsletter from the Rosalia School District said the available course lineup includes 24 career and technical courses as well as 31 business courses.