Distance learning saves district from extinction. (District plus: tips and ideas for successful district leadership).

Distance learning saves district from extinction. (District plus: tips and ideas for successful district leadership). Three years ago Colorado's Vilas School District faced theproposition of going broke. The tiny district, which servedapproximately 70 students in 1999, would have been spending more insalaries and administrative costs administrative costs,n.pl the overhead expenses incurred in the operation of a dental benefits program, excluding costs of dental services provided. than it would have gotten ifenrollment had dropped any lower. "The only way to increase revenuewas to look for people outside the district's boundaries."There was little chance that class size would surge in this remote town,so Endersby and the administrators looked to distance education to boostthe budget. The plan has paid off with a distance education program that hasbeen in the black since its launch in 2000. With a current enrollment of100 high school students, the program is bringing in $900,000 per year,based a tuition For tuition fees in the United Kingdom, see .Tuition means instruction, teaching or a fee charged for educational instruction especially at a formal institution of learning or by a private tutor usually in the form of one-to-one tuition. reimbursement ReimbursementPayment made to someone for out-of-pocket expenses has incurred. of $9,000 per student. To date, Vilas hasspent $750,000 on the distance education program. Endersby estimatesthat distance enrollment will double by next year, while in-classenrollment will total 90 students. He helped launch the program by reaching out to the unconventionalhigh school student: gifted students, students at risk or pregnant teengirls who wanted to continue their education. "We sent a brochureto all the guidance counselors guidance counselorChild psychology A school worker trained to screen, evaluate and advise students on career and academic matters in Colorado schools and explained what wewere doing," he says. He also promoted the program to thestate's juvenile services and legal systems. Endersby initiallyuploaded all the coursework courseworkNounwork done by a student and assessed as part of an educational courseNoun 1. coursework - work assigned to and done by a student during a course of study; usually it is evaluated as part of the student's by transferring individual class lessonsinto HTML HTMLin full HyperText Markup LanguageMarkup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. code--a task that took 1,000 hours. Vilas has since selectedJones Knowledge to provide Web software, as well as chat and e-mailfunctions that serve students and teachers.