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Olivia Carlesso Weiss. Photo by Lisa Ann Carlesso.
During his junior and senior years at Northville High School, Logan Bye's weekday schedule looked very different from his classmates. The 2016 Youth Olympic silver medalist in ice dancing would start the day on the ice at 6:30 a.m., training until 8 a.m. Then, he'd go to school, but only until noon.
At that point, it was back to the ice in the afternoon – that is, if he went to school at all. Several times throughout the school year, he and his ice dance partner would travel for competitions, missing days of school at a time.
How is someone with such a seemingly skimpy academic schedule preparing to go to the University of Michigan this fall? Bye took about 50 percent of his classes online. That allowed him to fit a quality education into his non-traditional schedule.
"If I'd had to take those courses in school, it wouldn't have allowed for the necessary training that we needed to chase our dreams," Bye says.
Bye's Olympic medal certainly makes him unique, but his class schedule doesn't. From Olympians-in-training to ordinary high school athletes who regularly leave school early for track meets or football games, student-athletes throughout Michigan are finding online classes to be a great way to balance the demands of their sport and their academic goals.
A flexible education
Bye has been ice dancing since he was nine, but it wasn’t until 2014 when he moved to Michigan that he began using online courses to complement his skating schedule. In Portland, Oregon, where he'd previously attended school, online classes weren't an option.
"It was a lot more hectic," he says. "It was a lot harder to get through the day."
Flexibility on a daily basis isn't the only benefit for student athletes taking online courses. Michigan Virtual School’s sales rep and former online English and journalism instructor Stacey Hicks taught some athletes, including a hockey player who moved out of state for a year to pursue an opportunity while continuing his education full-time online.
"For students working around their athletic schedule, it's all about flexibility," Hicks says.
For Bye, that generally means working on online courses on the weekends.
For 13-year-old Olivia Carlesso Weiss, a tennis player from Royal Oak, flexibility means shifting entire years of her education around. Though she'll be starting eighth grade this year, she's leveraged online courses in such a way that she'll be taking four high school classes this fall.
"As she gets more advanced, she'll have a reduced schedule," says Olivia's mother, Lisa Carlesso. "She's piling it in now, so when she's older and being scouted, she'll spend more time on the court."
A real education
Flexibility is critical for student athletes, but there's another factor that's even more important.
"It's still a high-quality education with a high-quality teacher as their contact," says Hicks. And that's important, even for those whose current career goals revolve around sports.
"Athletes are realists," Hicks says. "You take one fall on the ice or the court, your career could be over. They can't afford to skimp on their education."
That's why, Hicks adds, any students who expect online courses to be a blow-off route are quite surprised during their first class with Michigan Virtual University.
The rigorous curriculum and hands-on relationship with real teachers make it a genuine academic experience. And just like high-level athletics, keeping up with the courses while on an ever-changing schedule takes discipline.
"Online classes require a person who is responsible and diligent about keeping on course," says Bye.
It's helpful that MVU courses are administered by certified teachers who are just as committed to helping their students succeed as face-to-face teachers are.
"They're still teenagers," Hicks says. "That's one of the benefits of having a live instructor on the other end to hold you accountable."
According to Weiss, that's exactly what they do. And she keeps them on their toes as well.
"The teachers are really good," she says. "If I send them a message, they'll probably write back the same day. I call them too."
Weiss has good reason to be serious about her education. While she's focused on playing tennis six days a week and attending tournaments a couple of times a month, she has academic goals in her sights as well.
"My dream school would be Michigan State University," she says. "I want to be a tennis teaching pro and make a career out of it."
She’s like any other Michigan high school student with any other career goals. As a student-athlete, Weiss, and many like her throughout the state, just found a better way to meet those goals.
This story is part of a series on online education in Michigan. Support for this series is provided by Michigan Virtual University.
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