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HomeLink
Yelm Community Schools

Location

• HomeLink was created in 1999 at Yelm Community Schools to serve as an outreach program to home schooling families and provide a vehicle for independent study with instructional support.
• Yelm Community Schools is located in southeast Thurston County in the Puget Sound region in Yelm, Washington.

District Description

Yelm Community Schools

• Yelm Community Schools currently enrolls more than 5,000 students in nine schools.

Number of Students

• HomeLink serves 40 families out of approximately 150 families enrolled as home schooling with two assigned teachers.

Grade Levels

• HomeLink aids home school students sixth through twelfth grade.

Ethnic Breakdown

The ethnic makeup of the district's student population is approximately

• 87.1% Caucasian
• 1.7% African American
• 3.4% Hispanic
• 3.8% Asian
• 4% Native American.

Additional Information

• HomeLink is governed by alternative state laws.
• The HomeLink program requires full-time students to meet with a teacher a minimum of five hours twice a week, accumulate 20 hours of work outside the classroom, document work at home using a time log, and make timely progress toward a diploma.
• The district established HomeLink as an alternative learning experience and parent partnership program, provided on site, over the Internet, and/or by other electronic means.
• The HomeLink attendance schedule requires students to attend class twice a week.  Students may choose mornings from 7:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. or afternoons from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on either Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Friday mornings and afternoons are available for makeup and additional support to the student.
• Parent/mentor participation is an integral part of the HomeLink program.

Challenges Presented

• The goal at Yelm Community Schools was to find a program to update their curriculum for their high school alternative program that serves approximately 120 students.
• The home school program needed a curriculum to create an alternative law based program to serve the many home schooling families in the district.
  
• The program needed to be flexible while at the same time provide a quality educational curriculum.
• In their search for a solution, product flexibility and functionality were among the top factors they considered prior to purchase.

Solution—NovaNET®

• NovaNET was implemented at Yelm Community Schools in 1999 for the home school population.
• The NovaNET system is an online comprehensive courseware system that delivers thousands of hours of standards-based, interactive curriculum with integrated assessment, student management and record keeping. The system acts like a personal tutor for each student. As students progress at their own pace, they receive continual positive feedback and instructive encouragement along the way.
• Yelm Community Schools utilize the Windows platform for NovaNET. HomeLink started with 20 ports and now has increased to 30 ports.  During the school day, 20 of these ports are now used by the high school as a retrieval class.
• Program flexibility has been a key factor for success by using NovaNET with the HomeLink program at Yelm Community Schools.
• NovaNET provides prescriptive- and mastery-based curriculum.
• NovaNET curricula has been evaluated with over 30 million hours of cumulative use by students and instructors.
• NovaNET ensures course consistency and promotes a positive working relationship among different sites.
• NovaNET tracks time on tasks, notifies instructors when students complete coursework, require assistance, or need new assignments.  Test scores and report options are available to the instructor, student, and parent.  Additional coursework is available offline to enhance the NovaNET curriculum.  Students in high school may take classes for credit and receive a Yelm High School diploma.
  
• Students who complete seventh or eighth grade curriculum earn a Certificate of Achievement.  High school students earn a Yelm High School diploma.

Results

• Most students who complete the course earn an A or B.
• NovaNET allows the student to work at their own pace and learn the subjects properly without distractions.
• The program makes it easy for students to set goals and see their progress and allows flexibility to choose their subject and study time.
• Overall, NovaNET provides the students an opportunity to enjoy learning.

Contact us for additional information on how Pearson Digital Learning can help you achieve results with NovaNET.