For the first time this summer, students will be able to choose between taking summer school courses at the school or online through the Indiana Online Academy (IOA) according to Principal John Williams.

Williams said, “This year, we are kind of getting into this in the middle of the stream, so we have people registering for summer school here and online. It’s really good for kids, and we didn’t want to wait a year, so we’re willing to put with (scheduling difficulties).”

According to the counseling center’s website, students are able to take physical education I, physical education II, government, economics, any courses eligible under the CHS retake policy, any courses a student has failed and needs the credit for graduation and any math courses to get a student on track for graduation. Students will be allowed to take either one summer class at CHS and one summer class at the IOA or two classes at the IOA, but only one of the courses can be a physical education course.

The online summer school will begin on June 9 and end on July 24. All of the coursework needs to be completed by July 20 and final exams for the courses will be held at CHS on July 21, 22, 23 and 24.

Williams said the biggest advantage of the online summer school program is the flexibility.

“The online (program) is anytime. That’s the advantage of online. You have a start date and end date, but you have these online lessons, so if you wanted to do them at 7 o’clock in the morning or 7 o’clock in the morning, you could,” Williams said. “If you’re taking a trip with your family the second week of June, you couldn’t do summer school here. But you could take your computer with you and you could do your online (classes) during your trip, or you could not do it there and do it when you get back.”

Williams said another benefit to the online program is the ability for students to take classes with typically low enrollment at CHS.

Williams said, “In order to take it here, we’d have to have enough for a class and online, if only one person wanted to take it, they could take it there.”

Student body president George Gemelas said while he thinks that summer school online will benefit many students, he does have some reservations about the new system, especially regarding summer gym classes.

Gemelas said, “Although (online summer gym classes) may increase enrollment, I do think that summer gym my freshman year was very important because I got to meet people before I got to high school, because coming from middle school, that was an important factor. So, I prefer the old method from the one now, but I can definitely see how it works both ways.”

For information about summer school in past years, click here.