Open High School of Utah

The Open High School of Utah (OHSU) is based in the US state of Utah. Founded in 2009, it is a public charter school which aims to provide Utah students with an online, virtual environment to fulfill their "full academic and social potential". OHSU offers education for 500 full-time high school students in grades 9-11, and will add grade 12 in 2012. Courses are fully online.

OHSU offers a full college preparatory programme and the opportunity for students to earn both a high school diploma and an associate's degree from 'Utah State University'. It is estimated that 39% of existing students' "needs [were] not being met in previous school situations".

The Open High School of Utah has been supported in part by a grant from the US Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Education (FIPSE).

The Open High School of Utah web site is at http://openhighschool.org

More details

Founded by OER evangelist David Wiley, OHSU is committed to using open educational resources (OER); the entire curriculum is based on open educational resources, enhanced with screencasts, interactive components and other activities.

As this is a Utah public school, any 9th grade high school student (13 to 15 years of age) in the state of Utah can apply to enroll in the grade they would attend at any other high school in the state.

Open High School of Utah is a publicly-funded high school, so there is no tuition cost to attend. As with any public school, there may be incidental fees as allowed by state law. Students can expect any such fees to be comparable to their local high school, including the opportunity to have the fees waived.

Enrolled OHSU students can take advantage of the OHSU partnership with Utah-based Brigham Young University Independent Study (in the Utah Higher Education Consortium) to take BYU independent courses at no cost.

e-learning

All OHSU students are issued/provided a laptop and an internet connection subsidy, along with CDs/DVDs and other instructional supplies. Learning is self-paced, in collaboration with teachers. OHSU utilizes both synchronous and asynchronous types of communication. For each course, students have the opportunity for synchronous instruction with their teacher (daily). For more details see http://openhighschool.org/teaching-model

Refrerences

• Open High School of Utah web site, http://openhighschool.org

The charter proposal is at http://openhighschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/OHSU-Charter-as-Amended-Apr09.pdf

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