Brenda Baer, Distance Learning Director and Jeanne Lind, Outreach Coordinator were gracious enough to spend a major portion of the day driving me around the Phoenix area visiting various centers of Blueprint Education. They explained the mission of Blueprint Education is to "serve non-traditional students in a non-traditional way." The basic concept they work from is what they call "Blended Learning." In simplified form, Blended Learning is capturing the potential of Distance Learning through individualizing instruction, while at the same time holding on to the vital face-to-face interaction between teachers and students whenever possible. The result is a considerable increase in learning potential for the students that can also reach many students who have struggled in traditional education.

Blueprint Education is a purely education organization with no pretensions whatsoever of any clinical mental health expertise, and will screen out students who obviously need treatment. However, my interest in them is because while working with non-traditional students, it was explained to me that many they are successful with are students who look much like some of the students enrolled in therapeutic boarding schools or wilderness therapy programs. That is, these Blueprint Education students were failing school, hanging with negative peers, and had behavioral problems coming from some kind of anger. They explained to me that some of their parents had wanted a therapeutic boarding school for their child, but could not afford one. In frustration, and needing to do something for their child, they tried Blueprint Education if the child would commit to giving it an honest try. Not all, but some of those students were very successful.

When I think about it, this makes sense. Many acting-out (or even acting-in) students are reacting to their inability to succeed at anything positive. Help them have success at something important and positive such as academics, and much of the anger and behavioral problems will bleed away in many of these students.

Another group they are successful with is in the area that might be called credit recovery. They told me there is always a big spike in enrollments for one or two classes in April, especially among high school seniors. It turns out that is about the time of the end of the first quarter of the second semester, and the time students are informed they very likely will flunk a class required for graduation. Panic sets in, parents put pressure on them, and Blueprint Education has the flexibility to give them a second chance to earn an acceptable credit for the course by the end of the year without compromising quality.

Being homebound due to sickness, traveling, living in a rural area with inadequate education services, flunking and/or avoiding traditional education or wanting an American education while traveling in foreign countries are a few of the reasons students might find Blueprint Education helpful in obtaining a secondary education. Blueprint Education is currently serving hundreds of students like these around the world.

Blueprint Education is accredited through AdvancED. AdvancED is dedicated to advancing excellence in education worldwide. The North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement (NCA CASI), Northwest Accreditation Commission (NWAC) and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS CASI) are accreditation divisions of AdvancED. The school can offer high school diplomas, and any credits granted by Blueprint Education will be accepted in virtually any other school in the country.
On my tour, our first stop was Blueprint High School in Chandler, which is an alternative school. They use an open room layout so it is easy to visually keep track of the students, with computers all over the room. Some of the students spent some time in a classroom (maximum of 12 students) with the teacher at the beginning of the class, and then went to the computers to work on individualized assignments, with the teacher spending time with individuals needing and wanting some teacher time. Some who are more traditional oriented had copied their assignment and were working on them with paper and pencil at a table, and others were doing their work on the computers. The buzz in the room was productive and the atmosphere was relaxed.

Our last stop was at the headquarters in Glendale. This brought home the difficulty in reviewing a program in which a major part of is through cyber space. I met the staff, very pleasant and seemed dedicated, but that just gave a positive picture of the staff. I couldn't really grasp much of what they were doing. To clarify, we fired up a computer and screen in a conference room and Brenda went over some samples of the curriculum, including some scores students had received including comments by the teachers who had been overseeing their work. In other words, the end product of all the staff work. These were online of course but some might have been from the alternative school. There is a tremendous amount of detail that goes into making all this come together to give a quality education experience. Considering the amount of necessary detail, it was clearly impressive how many tasks need to be taken care of to make all this come together to work successfully.

Another reason I've been interested in their version of Distance Learning, is they have partnered with about fifteen wilderness therapy and therapeutic boarding schools, most of which I am familiar with. Each one they are working with came about through a several month long exploratory process in determining if the program could be helped by Blueprint Education. Some have just been helped by developing a curriculum so elective credits could be granted for the legitimate effort already being done by the students in the wilderness. Others are using Blueprint Education as a provider of the Distance Learning curriculum for the students to supplement the academics being provided by the teachers at the school.

One thing insisted on is if Blueprint Education is to partner with a school or program, the school must take academics seriously. For example, if a school has been using a simple packet program and is looking to only find a cheaper substitute for their packets, it is likely Blueprint Education would not be interested.

I continue to be intrigued by this organization, and what I have heard and seen sounds like they are doing the right thing and could be a feasible choice for many students struggling in traditional classrooms.