SASKATOON – As classrooms fill across Saskatoon for the first full week of class, Saskatoon’s Catholic Cyber School is also expecting full attendance.
The program is expecting to grow further this year, as it’s offering 49 high school courses for students to take, the most in its history.
“We had four classes in the year 2000, probably about 100 kids and since then we’ve grown every year,” said Ryan Hauber, the school’s principal.
This year the program hopes to be more in touch with social media, said Hauber, who is in his first year as principal.
“That’s where the kids are right now so we’d be crazy not tap into that same market,” he said.
“We have to try to create the best course we can, the most interesting courses that we can.”
Cyber School has a reputation for constantly evolving alongside technology’s advancements.
When it was launched, the program featured chat rooms, which were popular at the time. Now teachers utilize RSS feeds and parents are notified about their child’s progress via text message.
“Let’s take on whatever is out there and be relevant to students and social media is obviously a way,” said Superintendent John McAuliffe, who oversees the school at the division level.
A teacher can implement a new online trend into their lesson plan, said Hauber, but staying current with an ever changing entity provides a unique challenge.
It’s this reason that Hauber says he is never fully satisfied with where the school is at and is always look to make improvements.
“We’re always trying to get better, we’re doing some really good stuff right now, but are we there yet, probably not, will we ever be there, probably not,” he said.
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