The Foreign Service Journal, December 2010

The International Baccalaureate program has been slow in producing online versions of its highly regarded and very rigorous courses. But stu- dents attending an IB World School — one of the more than 3,000 schools in 139 countries that have IB programs — now have the option of taking limited online courses. (For a list of IB World Schools, see www. ibo.org/school/search/index.cfm?nex tStart=2.) In a related development, many American public school systems are now contracting with online schools like K¹² and VHS to provide options for their students. Families whose children have been in a school system in the U.S. and want to stay with that school system even after being posted abroad may be able to do so by taking full-time online courses. A phone call to the school about residency requirements may even awaken a school system to the need for this service. Julie Linn says K¹² would be happy to work with Foreign Service families who want to stay within their public school system (for the 32 states that K¹² serves). She adds that if the particular U.S. school system doesn’t allow free attendance from overseas, the education allow- ance would cover the charge levied for this service. What Are the Classes Like? What does a typical online class entail? Only a few years ago, classes were primarily text-based. Teenagers often felt like FS teen Mazel Fernan- dez, who took math and science online while she was attending the International School in Iceland. “On- line courses were okay, but they were just text and not really helpful. It did- n’t really have the feel of ‘learning;’ it was just reading. [So] I didn’t really like it,” she says. She also points to the lack of social interaction as a negative factor. Though some online classes may still lack interactivity, typical online 78 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT Teenagers with special interests such as business, art or technology often do not have an opportunity at overseas posts to pursue these fields academically.