If you would like to see what real Laurel Springs School students think about the program, take a look at these videos over on Blip.tv.

By the way, one of the reasons why I consider Laurel Springs a top-notch school is that they do this sort of thing (and have a MySpace page and have videos up on YouTube, and so on). My take is that, if you are an online high school, you should really be online.

For a very short time, we have available new copies of Complete Guide to Online High Schools: Distance learning options for teens & adults available for $10. That includes the cost of shipping. That means the book itself is about $7. That’s a better price than on Amazon.com!

How can you get one?

Simple. Go to Paypal.com and make a payment to info@degreepress.com. Please make sure to mention that it is for the book and include your mailing address.

Easy.

I recently offered some advice to a parent about an online high school for his two tennis-playing daughters. Amber Walker of Laurel Springs School happened to read my comment (because online high schools do read my blog) and offered the following:

I was just at a Jr. Nationals tennis event this past week, and met many of our Laurel Springs students. As far as the person who was inquiring about distance learning for her tennis players, I went to Easter Bowl this year and out of 400 players, 55 were laurel springs students. We have a total of about 300 tennis players in our school, and then come the ice skaters, gymnasts, dancers, motocross, snow boarders, surfers, and so on.

Talk about creating a niche for yourself! Certainly there are child prodigies attending other online high schools, but my guess is that Laurel Springs School has the most.

No, Complete Guide to Online High Schools is not really #20 on Amazon. However, I was reading one of the many blogs that I read every day, Steve Weber’s Plug Your Book, where he discusses a new feature on Amazon.

Amazon now shows category rankings for their books and this is now on the product page for your book if it ranks high enough. The categories are rather narrow, so being #20 is very nice, but it translates to:

Books> Nonfiction> Education> Technology & Distance Learning> Distance Learning

I will be curious to see who will try to abuse this first. Certainly this does mean that my book is one of the best-selling distance learning books on Amazon, but it’s important to remember that is a small group (relatively speaking).

However, I do view it as a nice feature for product pages and I will likely use the information (in some form) in my marketing. Ethically, though, I would need to describe it just like I did above.

I just purchased two of your books and am looking for some guidance. Our girls are 13 and 11, they are in Iowa public schools, they both rank above the 95 percentile on the Iowa Basic Skills Test, both at the top of their classes.

I have not been happy with the level of instruction – particularly in writing skills – and we have a tutor who supplements their education in this area.

The other problem has been scheduling of athletic and music activities. Their school is 7-7.5 hours and it leaves little time for tennis training and music lessons. Both girls are nationally ranked tennis players.

I am concerned about many of the homeschooling alternatives – and would not do any type of homeschooling without tutors to assist us. I don’t like being the one to provide grades and diplomas. If I was a college admissions office, I would not give that much credibility.

I have researched many of the curricula, schools, academies online, but it is very difficult to find reliable reviews. Missouri looks like a possibility, but how do you know? Any suggestions would be helpful. Also, it would be interesting to know what top universities think of these schools.

Thanks for your help!

P.C.

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I think that you have several strong possibilities. Given their academic abilities, I would seriously consider one of the university-based programs, like Missouri, that offers a dual credit program. Your girls could be taking high school courses that are rigorous enough to be counted as college credit. However, that only works for when they get to high school (because Missouri is a high school only program).

One piece of information that you offered was intriguing and made me think of one particular school. You said that your daughters are nationally-ranked tennis players. Laurel Springs School has created a niche for itself in providing a quality education to children who are actors, athletes, musicians, and more, and for whom traditional public school is not a good choice. There is something to be said for this type of specialization. They are quite accustomed to meeting the needs of these types of students.

And should you like to continue this discussion, I would be happy to do so. We can take it into the forum. I think your daughters have some great options available to them.