Running Online Middle And High Schools: Caprice Young, CEO of KC Distance Learning (Part 4)

SM: Who accredited your school and what was that process?

CY: The Middle States Accreditation Body visited our school and we went through a very complex rubric of their criteria. At that time we gained preliminary accreditation. They ranked us against their criteria and returned six months later at which time we gave them a full report illustrating all of the work that we do in each of the areas they identified. At that time they decided if we would get full accreditation, and we did.

Primary accreditation allows the school to inform students that you are an accredited school. The second visit is a follow-up visit which validates that you are continuing to do everything as you should. That is a process of site visits and documentations. We had our accreditors go online and experience our courses.

SM: How long does the accreditation process take?

CY: You can get through initial accreditation in 30 to 60 days. Full accreditation takes six to nine months depending on the timing of visits. Full accreditation is valid for five to six years. School that have a few issues which need to be ironed out usually will only get accredited for two or three years. We have full six-year accreditation.

SM: Do you need a critical mass of students to have this type of accreditation?

CY: No, there are private schools across the country that have as few as ten students in them.

SM: What does tuition cost for students in your private school?

CY: It costs about $2,500 per semester if the student is enrolled in a full load of courses. Individual courses range tremendously. Some courses are very expensive to the amount of teacher time, such as Mandarin Chinese. Other courses are less expensive when it comes to teacher time, such as basic math. The expense is largely driven by the number of hours we expect teachers to work directly with students.

SM: What kinds of backgrounds are your 12,000 students coming from? Are they home school students?

CY: Most of our students are those who were not able to get an education through the traditional public school education system because their interests and life needs are unique. A lot of our students dropped out of middle school or high school for a variety of reasons. There could be a health problem in the family and they need to stay home and take care of a parent, or perhaps they could not handle the social aspects of a public high school. However, they still want to get their diploma. We give them another context in which they can get that diploma.

Other kids have special needs because of their interests or professions. We have actors and actresses in our schools as well as children of politicians. We have members of Olympic teams in our school as well. We have young professional skiers who need to have their summer vacation during winter. They end up taking their courses from July through mid-October. They then pick up in March. Traditional schools cannot match their schedule needs.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Running Online Middle And High Schools: Caprice Young, CEO of KC Distance Learning
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