A CYBER STORY
The Contra Costa Times picked up a tale about a cyber-charter in PA. Overall, it’s quite positive and, except for the mandatory testing and “certfified teachers”, almost could have been written about homeschooling.
Marc Stone, 17, and his sister Lisa, 18, who were both graduating, had driven four hours from Gettysburg for the ceremony. Marc underwent a kidney transplant when he was an infant, and he still has health problems.
Cyberschool allowed him to continue advancing — he was already taking college courses — even when he had to spend weeks at a time in the hospital.
“I took my laptop with me,” he explained.
For many of Marc’s fellow graduates, cyberschool had been liberating. They could sit at their computers — in their pajamas, if they wanted — and focus on learning. None of their classmates, or their teachers, knew what they looked like.
Aaron Doctor, whom Trombetta introduced during the ceremony as a poet, was wearing blue nail polish, thick pancake makeup, penciled-on black eyebrows that matched his dyed black hair, and a metal stud through his right ear.
“I had a horrible time in high school,” Aaron said, referring to his hometown school, in Fayette City.
In cyberspace, he said, he can be himself. “It’s a lot more comfortable than the regular world. I can doll it up and draw on my eyebrows. There’s a lot less judgment.”