SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) -Some Utah kids went back to school this year without ever stepping out of their front door. More than 9-thousand students in the state earned school credit through cyberspace in the past year.
Brenda Hales, Associate Superintendant at the Utah State Office of Education says there are three reasons most students use Utah's Electronic High School. "Students either want to make up credit, credit recovery, or students who want to extend their course work, have more classes than their schedule allows."
There are many online learning options: courses are offered from local districts, charter schools, Electronic High School, third party providers, college level courses, online courses for a fee, online classes for credit recovery, and the Statewide Public Education Online Program. If it sounds overwhelming, Hales says just remember accreditation, and monitored testing.
"You can have a perfectly good provider who has a good class, but let’s say they don't do any proctoring of tests; then your student could get into problems with having credit accepted. It could be turned down by a university, or it can be turned down by the NCAA."
Hales also says it’s important to remember that not all students are cut out for the online education experience. "Students who do better in online courses usually have to be a bit of a self starter, or have a great relationship with a parent who is helping them be a self starter."
In the last legislative session Utah lawmakers limited the number of courses that can be taken through Utah’s electronic high school options to no more than two credits a year. Students can also earn no more credits than they would if they were taking a full course load at their local high school. By July of 2012, students who had been using ESH to make up courses that they failed will no longer have the option to do so.
The new law does allow students to utilize online classes being offered in state school districts outside of their home area. The new law does not apply to third party virtual schools, online college courses, or online options the student pays for. To find out more about EHS, the changes created by the new law, and how to look for an accredited online program go you can visit the following websites.
www.northwestaccreditation.org For more information about important changes to the State of
Utah's
Electronic High School program visit
http://www.schools.utah.gov/main/search.aspx?q=electronic 
