How Online Schooling Helped Me Become the Person I am Today by Avarie

How Online Schooling Helped Me Become the Person I am Today by Avarie - January 2020 Scholarship Essay

My classroom experience would not exist without technology. In fifth grade, I started having seizures. Because of these seizures that occurred almost weekly as I got older, I ended up leaving public school in seventh grade to enroll in an online, Oregon based charter school. This change in scenery was the reason I have succeeded so much in high school and now in college.

When I started at my online school, I didn’t have the best relationship with school. In elementary school, I had absolutely adored my teachers and classes and had fun in school. I was an active member of multiple sports teams, in the TAG program and a classroom favorite because of my wacky assortment of farm animals. I felt really happy with school and felt happy to be there and succeed, but it all came crashing down on me once my seizures started. I suddenly started having lots of absences due to episodes at home, as well as having problems with disorientation, blurry vision and memory loss in class. Once I got into middle school, the seizures happened more and more frequently. The faculty that worked with me closely understood and were very helpful with balancing my medical condition and classwork, however I started becoming looked down on by others who just assumed I was skipping or ‘acting’ sick to get out of classwork.

In seventh grade, my family had a big move about five hours away from my childhood home. I enrolled in a completely new school and it didn’t have a great outcome, as I started having seizures even more frequently. Eventually, it was too exhausting for me and my family as well as the faculty to try and make public school work, so we started looking for alternative options. Once I started at my new online school, my entire world was shifted. I suddenly had a huge support system around me that understood what I was going through and what accommodations I needed to help me with the assignments. This was completely online with different options for each learning style. I got to watch lecture videos for subjects like math as well as more reading options for language and writing subjects. My teachers were always one click away and incredibly easy to talk to for help on homework. My homeroom teacher was the best, she was always so helpful and understanding about how hard it was for me to keep up with schooling while having almost daily seizures.

Having all of my classes, teachers and a huge support system online truly helped me succeed in high school. I didn’t come out of ninth and tenth grade with the best GPA, however I did learn more about myself and how strong of a person I am. I am proud to say that I have been seizure free for over two years and am now enrolled in the early college program through my high school. Because of the option of online schooling, I was able to get through my medical condition and continue schooling, albeit at a slower pace. At sixteen years old I enrolled in my local community college, maintaining a GPA of 3.98 (something that seemed unattainable just a few years ago!) I am absolutely thriving in college, I am the president of my school’s chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society, and I am on the Dean’s List as well as the Honor Roll. I owe my fantastic situation right now all to the online schooling option, and technology.