CYBERSCHOOLS The Net result: an education via WWW

One self-motivated learner wanted out of the public school environment.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
BESSEMER, Pa. -- Vanessa Bubin's room is typical of most teenagers' personal sanctuaries.
A collection of friends' snapshots hangs on a wall next to the bed in the small upstairs space. A palm plant rests on the room's purplish rug in a corner near a desk, which bears a portable stereo and a computer decorated with stuffed toy animals.
For Vanessa -- a willowy girl who is 15 but points out she'll be 16 soon -- the room is much more than her own private corner of the house. It's her classroom.
During the nine-month school year, she spends several hours a day there, earning her high school diploma. Vanessa is one of hundreds of youngsters who are trading traditional schools for their online counterparts.
Explanation
Asked to explain her choice, she answers articulately and with the self-assurance of someone older.
"I have a lot of morals and, in school, they don't have many morals," she said.
"I wanted to get out of there," she added of her decision to leave Mohawk schools when she was in eighth grade.
Even at that early age, her public school peers "were getting involved in sexual relations and partying. Pretty much everything," Vanessa said.
The atmosphere clashed with her personal beliefs and her faith.
Vanessa and her family are Jehovah's Witnesses. Followers of the religion worship God revealed in the Bible as Jehovah. The denomination was founded in 1872 by Charles Taze Russell.
After leaving public school, Vanessa was home-schooled for a year. Then she and her parents, Teresa and Douglas, opted to enroll her as a high school freshman in Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School because they believed an online education offered more structure and resources.
"It's a good avenue," especially for youngsters with the will to knuckle down and study and parents determined to ensure that they do so, Vanessa's mother said.
Vanessa, who will be a junior in the fall, said she's certain the education she's getting is just as good as what she would be receiving in a traditional school.
"You have the same classes; you're doing the same material. You're just doing it on your own," she said.
To meet her physical education requirement, she goes to a private gym in Bessemer regularly to walk and lift weights. Her cyberschool reimburses her for the cost.
She socializes with classmates through occasional field trips organized by the school, such as a river cruise in Pittsburgh.
Vanessa's friends urge her to return to Mohawk. "I have no desire to," she said.
With two more years of high school remaining, she is uncertain what her career goals are.
"I don't know if I want to go to college," she said.
But whatever she decides to do, Vanessa is certain the hours spent in her room in front of her computer are preparing her for it.