Last year, Freedom High School proved to be a leading school in education when the school went one to one with individual laptops for all students. No different this school year, Freedom’s opening new doors of learning for many students. Also called the e2020 program, this new offering at Freedom High School gives students a choice in where they would like to take their classes: online, in the classroom or a combination of both. Freedom Cyber School is currently available to students who need credit recovery or students who would just like to better themselves. It gives students a chance to take online courses that provide an alternate to Cyber School which is outside of the district. Some students may remember old friends who started out at Freedom, but left to go to Cyber School instead. Freedom students who should be seniors, juniors or sophomores are technically in one grade lower simply because they do not have enough credits to be considered in their class. Many other students dream of taking challenging classes not offered at Freedom, such as Astronomy, Japanese or AP Psychology. Now they all will have the opportunity to resolve these problems at Freedom Cyber School. “As you know, you can have a choice,” Mrs. Corris said. “You’re allowed to go wherever you want: cyber, charter or public school.” The problem is that every student that leaves Freedom affects the district’s budget. “If you are a regular-ed student and you decide to go to cyber as a district, and you live in our district, you have the right to do that,” Mrs. Corris said. Every student that goes to Cyber School costs the Freedom school district between $9,000 and $15,000. “Right now, we have $433,000 coming out of our budget for cyber students, Mrs. Corris said. “If I can keep that money here, I can offer more opportunities for our kids.” Once the decision to start Freedom Cyber School was made, the problem became choosing the platform that ensured Freedom Cyber School students the same benefits and education that traditional students have. Freedom School found the answer in the e2020 platform. “So what we bought with the 2020 is the platform to allow us to uniquely customize each of our classes to exactly what the class would be if you were in the classroom itself,” Mrs. Corris said. Replicating the classroom feel, teachers will be available to the students taking online classes. The possibilities for Freedom Cyber School are “unlimited” as Mrs. Corris explains. “In five years, I’d like it to be a hybrid system, so we have just as many kids in that type of setting in our building. It’s totally adaptable to what student’s needs are, and that’s where I want to go with it.” Mrs. Corris said. Other benefits of going to Freedom Cyber School would be the opportunity to participate in Freedom’s extracurricular activities, and their diploma would be from Freedom Area School District. “It will allow you to stay in band if you want to be in band, or play sports if you want to play sports. You still have access to the Prom, and most importantly you’ll have access to all of our teachers,” Mrs. Corris said. Since the program was approved so late in the summer, only 15 students are enrolled in online classes so far. The first set of teachers are being trained on the program this November. Mrs. Corris reported that 70 students, under credit recovery, are expected to join the program by the end of the year. That is not counting others who would also be interested in taking online courses as additional challenges. The program will likely be rolled out to all students in spring. This program is designed to help all students “in a myriad of ways,” Mrs. Corris said. “It’s our school. It’s our diploma, and we keep our kids here,” Mrs. Corris said.