| State: Louisiana | Number of Students: 167 |
| School Type: Charter School | Free and Reduced Lunch: 96.0% |
| Grade Level: 9-12 | English Language Learners: 2.0% |
School Context
A Sense of Belonging: The NET prioritizes providing safe learning environments, creating a sense of belonging andacceptance for all students.
Achieving Mastery: Supporting students to develop skills such as problem solving, reliability, work ethic, preparedness andusing feedback to make revisions so that they can achieve mastery of the content is a top priority at this charter school.
Fostering Independence: Students are encouraged to take responsibility for their success in the present and the future. Tosupport further independence, students are encouraged to take risks and trying new things.
Kindness Counts: At The NET, the school culture is focused on spreading generosity through supporting peers, solvingconflicts and practicing forgiveness.
State of Technology
Academic Programming: The NET is a year-round school that offersdifferentiated curriculum to fit a diverse set of students’ needs. Thereare three critical components that each student participates in. There aretraditional core classes, in math and in science, virtual courses chosen forstudents based on their graduation needs, and an 8-10 person advisorywhich functions as a seminar with project-based components. Lastly, students can choose to participate in professional internships to gain real-world experience. While students get lots of tech time in the computer lab’s virtual courses, technology in traditional classes and advisory vary. Theseteachers and advisors can check out Chromebooks for students as needed.As of fall 2015, The NET will have about 25 Chromebooks for students touse.
Online Credit Recovery: NET Charter High School offers online coursesfor students who have fallen behind in their credits. These computerbased courses allow students to work at their own pace on any coursethey choose. Students take the virtual courses in a computer lab at TheNET where a full time teacher is there to support them. The NET has foundthat student success rates and satisfaction are higher when virtual coursesprovide multiple levels of scaffolding and engagement. For that reason,The NET switched from using Apex Learning to Compass Learning Odyssey.They found that Compass courses were able to engage students more byusing interactive components in addition to lectures, while also remediatingcontent in the middle and lower grades as needed.
Homebound Program: Sometimes students can’t make it to school.The NET doesn’t want this to be a reason their students stop pursuing ahigh school diploma. The Homebound Program was created to keep NETstudents plugged into the school even when they are away. The schoolwill loan these students a 4G enabled HP Chromebook when they’re not atschool. Students use the Chromebooks access to virtual courses, recovercredits and keep moving toward graduation. In some cases, a teacher willeven deliver classroom materials to students to encourage participationand enrollment.
Beyond Spreadsheets: Students at The NET have the same goal: tograduate. There are many different paths to get there which can maketracking progress a challenge. To solve this problem, The NET worked witha private developer to create a custom database. The database trackseach student’s progress toward graduation, including their test scores andindividual graduation requirements.
Tech Needs & Requirements
The NET is looking for software to support English language acquisition for ELL students. The NET is also looking for age-appropriate literacy intervention for high school students.
Initiatives
In 2015 the NET will begin offering Spanish as an online course because the state is requiring that students take 2 years of aforeign language in order to graduate. The NET is looking at Rosetta Stone and Middlebury to fill this need.