Jasmine Jones, a senior at Great Mills High School, says now that she didn’t do so well the second half of her junior year, mainly because she stopped going to school regularly.

“Second semester was horrible,” she said one day last week while working in a new computer lab set up near the entrance to the school’s cafeteria.

Jones is signed up to take four semester courses online this year in addition to a full load of other courses so she can earn the required credits to graduate on time. She’ll work on two classes at a time; as soon as she is done one she’ll be able to move on to another.

The new online courses are aimed at to help Great Mills students in jeopardy of not earning a diploma get back on track. “If that’s how we graduate, I’ll do anything,” Jones said. She plans to work during her lunches and at home, after she works a job in the evening.

“I just want to graduate with my class,” Jones said.

The program, called Great Mills High School Grad Track, began this school year in partnership with America’s Promise Alliance, a nonprofit education reform group founded in 1997 by Colin Powell. The group will pay for digital courses that students at Great Mills can take during lunches, free periods or after school as part of a grade recovery program. The group’s ultimate goal is to improve graduation rates nationwide.

The nonprofit will pay for digital curriculum from Apex Learning for three years, a cost estimated at more than $100,000. After that, if the program is proven to work, the school could choose to divert resources from more traditional instructional programs to keep the online learning program alive, Principal Jake Heibel said.

Currently most students are juniors or seniors who really need to pass a class (or several) in order to graduate on time; hopefully this will expand down in grades to let younger students recover from failing grades earlier, Heibel said. It will likely be used for summer school, too. “What we’re really heading toward is the future of education,” Heibel said.

He said the program is similar to St. Mary’s public schools’ Evening High School program, with some distinct differences. “It’s just more convenient and conducive for them to stay right here,”Heibel said. Students do not have to rely on transportation to get to Leonardtown High School, where Evening High School is offered. There is no cost to the student Grad Track program, unlike Evening High School.

Students can work on the online course during a regular period (if it fits into their schedule), during part or all of their lunch shift, after school at the computer lab or anytime, anywhere there is Internet access, including in most cases students’ homes.

There is some transportation provided to students who stay after school.

Maryland is behind some other states in offering online classes as an alternative to traditional school, Heibel said. “With this program, we’re catching up.”

Sarah Poe, a newly hired teacher dedicated to the online program, came from an online public charter school in South Carolina, where students in grades kindergarten through 12 were taught using computer courses. “My job here really is to support students,” Poe said, “ but they do the bulk of the work themselves.”

Grad Track keeps a qualified teacher is in the computer lab with the students at all times in case they have a question or, if needed, to make sure everyone stays on track. Poe called that a key component of the program that will help make it successful.

She said generally it would take the same amount of time to finish a course online as it would a traditional class. However, some students may push through course assignments and start another class sooner, she said.

Students can sometimes take a diagnostic test and skip through some lessons and it is a concept they already know.

She said online courses for high school students and even younger students are catching on as kids grow up more tech savvy. Instead of having the added component of learning how to use the program, they can more quickly and easily focus on the content of the program.

But Grad Track requires a level of motivation and discipline on the part of the students, she said. They have to want to pass the classes, a goal that is made easier by the promise of graduation.

Parents can log on to the program from their homes to check in on their children’s work.

So far a lot of the recovery classes are English or social studies, Poe said. There are online courses for most subjects, however, including math, science and foreign language classes, the latter of which also incorporate audio feeds.

Most of the courses have alternative lessons that add literacy support for students that are not reading on grade level.

While there is not direct, face-to-face interaction between students as in a traditional classroom, the online courses do incorporate discussion boards for students. There are journals, quizzes, practice assignments and tests incorporated into each course, all of which are done on the computer.

There are a handful of students using the Apex courses who are on track to graduate even without the online classes. In the future, more Advanced Placement courses and other upper-level classes could be open up to students online, educators said.

“I’m a guinea pig,” Eriq Scott said.

Because of scheduling conflicts Scott, a senior, was unable to fit in Advanced Placement psychology, a course he was interested in taking. His counselor allowed him to sign up for the course via APEX learning lab, which he works on during lunch and outside of school. “You’re kind of teaching kids independence,” which will help them prepare for college, Scott said of the online courses.

jyeatman@somdnews.com