Every winter, the auditorium fills with hundreds of students. The time has come for them to pick new classes, and counselors take the stage to repeat the list of 24 credits required for graduation. With only seven class periods in a day, many students have to choose between taking classes they enjoy and completing graduation requirements. Health and Personal Finance were two classes that could be taken online through the Odysseyware program and allowed for those requirements to be met. With the switch to Launch program, there should be an increase in classes offered online.

Each KHS student must have 7.5 elective credits in order to graduate. It seems like there is plenty of room for classes that students get to choose and enjoy, but they quickly run out. World language counts as an elective credit, and while it isn’t technically required to graduate, virtually all colleges require two or more world language credits. In addition, classes such as band, orchestra and journalism are all elective credits. Additional online course options leave more room for students to take the classes they enjoy. If a student loves art, they shouldn’t have to give it up just to run laps in gym. It is true that students can take gym in the summer, but it’s an inconvenience. I don’t know anyone who would want to go to school at 7:30 a.m. during the summer. Online classes give opportunities for more learning and more success. The Launch program currently has 48 different classes to choose from, so when students can only take those two classes online, their high school experience is being limited when it could and should be maximized.

Of course, online classes aren’t all positive, and there should be limits to the amount of classes students can take online, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t offer them at all. The switch from Odysseyware to the Launch program is supposed to help eliminate the problems that happened in the past, like completing courses in minimal amounts of time. With Odysseyware, students could complete their classes in a matter of weeks, days and sometimes hours. Because of the switch to the Launch program, the pace is set so it’s more like traditional classes, with the goal to help students remember more rather than having them rush through the class to finish as quickly as possible. It allows students to practice self-discipline while completing their classes at a pace similar to that of traditional learning.

In the past, The grading system for online classes different than traditional classes. Personal Finance and Health online used to be pass/fail instead of a letter grade. With the switch to Launch, this is changed, and for the better. When students took classes on Odysseyware, the class had no real impact on their GPA because their final grade would be a simple pass/fail. From now on, online classes will have a letter grade, eliminating the unfair advantage online classes had over traditional ones. Both online and traditional classes will now have the same grading system, as it should be.

Traditional classes should be prioritized, but if a student wants to enhance their learning, they should have that opportunity. Online learning is the future, so It’s time to allow students to have more online options and launch KHS into the 21st century.