10 Reasons to Join an Online High School

10 Reasons to Join an Online High School

If you’re a parent with kids in school, you know that this year has been a rollercoaster. Maybe you’re tired of watching public schools dash between virtual and in-person instruction options like chickens with their heads cut off. Maybe you’ve been trying homeschooling on your own, and it’s just not working. If you’re searching for better education options, here are ten reasons to consider enrolling your child at an online high school.

1. Virtual Space is a Safe Space

As of the writing of this article, the Coronavirus pandemic is on a bleak trajectory. Daily counts of new cases continue to reach record highs, and experts project that the worst is yet to come.

Why risk students’ and families’ health when there are safer online options for school? Switching to virtual education is an action you can take to regain a sense of control over your family’s well-being. An online high school is a predictable learning space protected from the pandemic.

2. Faculty Who are Experienced in Virtual Learning

Many traditional schools are attempting to conduct virtual education to protect students, faculty and families from virus exposure. We cheer for any effort to prioritize students’ safety. 

At the same time, this is new territory for traditional schools. They have attempted to copy their in-person model and paste it into an online platform. This has resulted in 8-hour Zoom lectures piled onto mountains of homework. 

Don’t wait while public schools use the 2020-2021 school year as a test run. You can enroll your child in an online school that features vetted faculty who specialize in virtual learning.

3. Flexible Scheduling

Traditional schools’ rigid bell schedule maximizes administrative convenience, not students’ learning.

Students value flexibility. They’re energized and emboldened by managing their schedules and learning paths. Autonomy is the highest reported benefit of online learning among high school students

Sora is an online high school that empowers students in their autonomy. Its structure is similar to college. Students attend live meetings with project groups and teachers for collaboration and accountability. But they also enjoy free blocks throughout the day to tackle their project goals at their own pace.

4. Support for Gifted Students

Access to unique courses is a major appeal of online learning. Parents rated access to advanced and locally unavailable courses among the top three benefits of online education

If your child is struggling to find motivation for classes, the issue may be the classes themselves. You might know that Einstein hated high school. His grades depended on memorization rather than inspiration. He eventually dropped out and went on to be one of the most famous minds of modern history. 

If your local school is limiting your child, look for online options that cultivate his or her creative genius. 

5. Customizable Curriculum

Without the constraints of standardized testing, online schools can afford to deliver more interesting curricula. Why limit students to a basic math course when they could be applying math and technology to designing a new app? Instead of summarizing current events, they could explore improvements to healthcare or to energy usage.

Students at Sora love customizing their course load based on their interests. One student is interested in design, so he created a full-fledged movie scene with Adobe Photoshop!

6. Benefits for Students with Disabilities

The personalized nature of online learning can benefit students with learning disabilities. In a traditional classroom setting, faculty are faced with a room of about 25 students. The nature of in-person instruction is limited by faculties’ ability to teach while managing a large group of students. This simple restraint makes it far too easy for students with disabilities to be left behind.

Research yields promising results for students with disabilities at online schools. Online lessons that incorporated unique accommodations, such as embedded story structure, positively benefited students. Such accommodations would not be feasible in the average traditional school.

7. Accommodations for Students with Health Limitations

Up to 30% of teens in Western countries suffer from a chronic illness. About 13% of these illnesses significantly interfere with teens’ daily life routines. If your child suffers from a chronic illness, he or she is not alone. Your child deserves a quality education that meets his or her needs. 

Online schools can afford your child the flexibility to attend a doctor’s visit during the day without disruption to learning. They can provide a stable space for learning and socialization for students with limited mobility.

8. More Engagement in Your Child’s Learning

Online education can be a more engaging and stimulating learning experience than in-person instruction. Take writing for instance. Too often students are expected to improve their writing by typing a paper, submitting said paper, and then deciphering their teachers’ hieroglyphic chicken scratch scattered across the pages. 

On a live virtual platform, teachers can post students’ pieces to a live, interactive screen. They can ask working questions like, “What’s an even stronger verb that can replace this one?” The teacher provides live feedback so that students can become more autonomous learners.

9. Bullying Management

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that one in five students experience bullying. It’s pervasive. It may seem unavoidable. But the details reveal possible avenues for trimming down bullying’s prevalence. 

Among bullied students, 42% of them reported bullying in physical classrooms, 43% in the hallways and 27% in the cafeteria. But only 15% of students reported being bullied online. 

Online schools can be a promising option for bullied students. The online format cuts out the primary spaces that bullying tends to occur. Online schools that provide specialized courses are also a fantastic space to meet motivated students who value their learning.

10. Affordability

Online schools tend to be far more affordable than traditional private schools. As of 2012, the average annual tuition for a secular private school was over $25,000

We believe that quality education should be more accessible. Sora provides a sliding scale for tuition. Depending on your financial situation, you can expect to pay anywhere between $400 – $800 a month.


Safe, premium education is available right now. Click here to speak with our admissions team about what benefits your child could enjoy from starting online school at Sora.

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