Don't wanna be a pooper scooper.

Meet Jack. He attends Mackinac Island High School on Mackinac Island in northern Michigan. This island has a year around population of 600 people. The ferry stops running right after Christmas and doesn't start again until April. Those winter months are spent in total isolation. Sometimes in February the ice between St. Ignace and the island freezes over. Then it is possible to get off the island on a risky, Christmas tree marked, ice bridge.
Jack is a senior in a school of about 100 students. That includes K-12. He goal is to attend Lake Superior State College in Sault St. Marie, Michigan when he graduates. Unfortunately his school is too small to include a teacher for the AP Chemistry class he would like to take. He wonders what to do. He knows what he doesn't want to do. That is to follow his father's footsteps into the family business - tending to horses and driving carriages for tourists.
Jack decides to talk to his guidance counselor who also teaches math and coaches the basketball team. His counselor remembers that Northern Michigan University in Marquette has a professor who teaches an online APChemistry class to students all over the Upper Pennisula. Most of these students attend small town schools or some one room schools. Some are isolated by geography or weather.
The island school has a modern technology lab thanks to many wealthy summer people who donate to the school. Jack finds that the school computers will connect him to his class. He enrolls.
The Professor at NMU uses a program similar to ICN - a two way interactive audio-video system using studio classrooms. The Professor had once taught in Iowa and was introduced to the program there. The Professor tells Jack to find a coach at Mackinac Island High School. He doesn't have to be a Chemistry teacher - just someone who can proctor tests and monitor Jack's progress.
Jack is also required to find someone to provide computer tech support. He talks to the computer instructor at his school and she agrees to help. She also teaches morning kindergarten. There aren't enough students to require a p.m. class.
The Professors job is to send materials to student coaches , send a calendar, evaluate work, and provide feedback. He communicates with parents and sends grades to the guidance counselor.
Jack's parents are curious about this process and wonder how he will learn without other students around him. They learn that Jack will have face to face interaction with his teacher and other students. He actually will have more classmates than he could ever have at the island school. He will be using chat rooms to plan projects, an electronic discussion board, and the Professor will even have office hours online. Jack is all set.
Mackinac Island is advertised as the "Somewhere in Time" place to be for summer tourists. No cars. No carbon monxide. Just peace.
But for a boy like Jack, life in the slow lane was holding him back. Virtual Schooling gave him what he needed. And he didn't have to wait for the lake to freeze to leave the island.