Virtual High School

Virtual High School, Inc. (VHS) is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Maynard, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1996 by Sheldon H. Berman and Robert Tinker with the support of the U.S. Department of Education. Its mission is to develop and deliver standards-based, student-centered online courses. VHS claims students from 29 states and 23 countries, averaging nearly 10,000 students per year, and offers over 200 semester and year long courses intended to augment rather than replace a school's curriculum. Some of the courses offered by VHS include 101 Ways to Write a Short Story, AP Biology, AP Economics, AP French, AP Spanish, AP Psychology, Art and the Internet, The Holocaust, and Basic Mandarin Chinese, to name a few. Each VHS participating school contributes by offering one classroom teacher to teach a VHS online course in his/her discipline as part of that teacher’s daily teaching responsibilities. In exchange, the school receives seats in VHS, which offer students courses not available from their local schools. Professional development courses are offered for the teachers to learn, practice and master the design and delivery of online courses. Courses are delivered on a weekly calendar schedule where students work together asynchronously. This allows students from around the globe to take courses whenever and wherever they have Internet access.

Awards

• USDLA 2007 21st Century Award for Best Practices in Online Technology and K-12 Education
• USDLA 2005 21st Century Award for Best Practices in Online Technology and K-12 Education
• USDLA 2005 Award for Online PreK-12 Programming Excellence, Gold Recipient
• Magna Award, American School Board Journal
• Stockholm Challenge 2001 Award for Global Excellence in Education
• Blackboard Course Contest Winner
• NCTET Community Builder Award 2004

External links

• VHS's website