Page 30 September 2011 Alternative school found on computer Trent Smoak in his online classroom. By Elias Tolano For ninth and 10th graders Trent and Jordan Smoake, getting to school involves a few clicks of the mouse and typing in a username and password. The 14- and 15-year-old siblings are enrolled in a virtual school, an online alternative to conventional schooling that is increasing in popularity throughout the U.S. In the digital world, students like Trent and Jordan can learn at their own pace, take courses not offered in their home districts, and avoid bullying that can make the classic school environment unbearable. Students with behavioral problems can also serve out punishment without falling behind in their academics. For the Smoake children, enrolling in a virtual school was a matter of safety and accommodating different learning styles. Yvette Smoake said her special-needs son was a victim of bullying during his middle-school years. Trent’s special education class had students with too wide a range of learning disabilities, and he couldn’t get the speci fi c assistance he needed in class, she said. Outside of class, bullying and teasing were becoming too much to handle. “We had to change schools twice in seventh grade,” Yvette said. “I don’t know what happened. We never had those problems in elementary school.” Older sister Jordan, an eighth-grader at the time, was fi nding it dif fi cult to keep her academics ahead of her social life. “I was really popular in middle school,” Jordan said. “Other kids would distract me during class and I was having trouble focusing.” As the two struggled in conventional school, Yvette decided to go online to research alternative forms of education. Continued on page 40