BlueSky Charter School: Staying in school -- online

They aren't typical high school students.

Chelsae Erkkila, a Cloquet 19-year-old, works three jobs, takes college-level courses and cares for her 2-year-old daughter, Lexus.

Melinda Mathis, 19, of Cottage Grove, is taking seven classes and plans to graduate from high school in January as the proud mother of 8-month-old Elliott.

Both young women have met with success at BlueSky Charter School, an online high school based in West St. Paul. In fact, among BlueSky's 900 students, teens with babies are its most successful group, graduating faster and with fewer dropouts than other categories of students.

Erkkila and Mathis -- among the 90 teen moms at BlueSky -- say the online system enables them to take classes while caring for their babies, helping their effort to put together a life from the shards of an unsteady childhood.

They also say strong relationships with the school's teachers, counselors and social workers have helped -- relationships they say are more significant than what they had in traditional schools.

Nationally, as well as in Minnesota, 10 to 25 percent of high school students drop out, depending which source of information is being used. Attrition rates for online schools typically are 10 percent to 20 percent higher than classes taught in a face-to-face setting, researchers say.

"If students feel they are not part of something, that their work is not being looked at and taken seriously, then you're going to have a high attrition rate," said Aaron Doering, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota who trains online teachers.

The challenge could be even greater at BlueSky because it has many students that educators term "at-risk" -- youths who haven't been successful and for any of a variety of reasons didn't fit in at traditional schools.

No prom, no rings

BlueSky, one of a handful of online charter schools in Minnesota, believes that creating a sense of community will help student retention and performance.

The school doesn't have a prom, a yearbook or class rings. But it does assign every student a "home-based teacher" who is their primary contact and stays with the student until he or she graduates. Students also are assigned a counselor and a social worker, in addition to an online teacher for each class they take. The home-based teacher has responsibility for making sure the students get set up logistically and for calling the student at least once a week to review progress.

The key to this arrangement, says Tom Ellis, school director of BlueSky, is "if at-risk kids can form positive, healthy relationships with positive, healthy adults."

Erkkila, the Cloquet teen mom, says she had such an experience when her BlueSky counselor helped her find assistance for her sister, who was having problems. Erkkila was concerned, which made it difficult for her to focus on her work.

"She did research. She was always calling to check on me to make sure everything was OK," said Erkkila. "She was awesome."

Mathis, of Cottage Grove, says she was similarly encouraged by a counselor earlier this year when she considered quitting school. Her son was barely three months old and Mathis learned she'd have to take several more classes to graduate than she had anticipated. "But my counselor Casie kept calling me. Kept telling me to hang in there," Mathis said. "They go the extra mile."

One-on-one is better

A key feature of all these relationships is that they are one-to-one, as opposed to being one in even a small classroom, said Ellis, the school director. "They form stronger relationships than they did with their classroom teachers in school."

For her part, Mathis also attributes her newfound drive to her baby, Elliott. "We just want to do better so our kids can have a better life," Mathis said.

Erkkila, who's working toward becoming a dental assistant, admits she was less focused before having her baby. "I was always on the run. I always wanted to go do stuff," she said.

Now if she's on the run, it's to work. But with Erkkila and Mathis there's something more than just wanting to be a self-sufficient mother that sent them to online education. They also want to be there for their children.

"I didn't want to go to high school and not be with her," Erkkila says. "I wanted to be there for her first of everything -- her first step, her first words. I wanted to be there for her."

So these days, when babies sleep, Erkkila and Mathis log on to their computers and into their classes.

Gregory A. Patterson • 651-298-1546