School Goes Online for Teachers District to Get Paid for Classes
Posted on: Wednesday, 10 August 2005, 00:00 CDT
PALMDALE - The Palmdale School District has launched an online school that offers courses through the Internet to teachers and at the same time will drum up revenue.
The district's Online Education Center is aimed at teachers who want to further their education or take courses needed to obtain teaching credentials. The district gets $50 per person per course.
"The district receives a certain amount of money for everyone who takes a course that's either designed by us or enrolls on our Web site," Assistant Superintendent Roger Gallizzi said. "It could be a large amount. The power of the Internet is huge. People can take these courses from all over the United States."
Palmdale's online school was developed in partnership with edPal, a San Jose-based nonprofit organization that created online education centers in collaboration with five other school districts and a teacher center at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
One of the other district's superintendents knew Palmdale Superintendent Jack Gyves and contacted him about joining the partnership.
Palmdale is the only Southern California school district in the program. The district's Web site has been up for about six weeks, and so far three teachers have signed up for courses, which cost between $180 and $300.
The Campbell Union School District, near San Jose, was the first school district to open an online education center and began offering classes in June 2004.
No figures were available on how much money the center has generated for the Campbell district but officials there said the potential is great.
"It's not a lot of money right now," Campbell Superintendent Johanna Vandermolen said. "It's in its infancy stages. We anticipate within three years we'll make six figures."
The online education center was created at no cost to the district.
"All the district has to do is promote the site," Gallizzi said. "Everything else is done by edPal - managing of the Web site, finding the courses, developing the courses - and edPal coordinates developing the courses. And any of the participating districts can develop courses."
The courses, which teachers can take from home by computer, are state- and university-approved.
"It gives more opportunities for our teachers to advance their technical skills," said Pauline Winbush, director of certificated personnel. "Obviously it will help student achievement because teachers will implement new strategies.
"It's nice to be able to do things online where you don't have to be away from home and still get quality knowledge."
Karen Maeshiro, (661) 267-5744
karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com
Source: Daily News; Los Angeles, Calif.
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