Have you ever been interested in taking classes in Japanese, accounting or criminal investigation? While none of those classes are being offered at WHS yet, they will be offered online next year through TEC Online Academy and TEC Connections Academy (TECCA).

The Education Cooperative (TEC) provides professional development, alternative educational settings and, more recently, online classes for the communities of its member districts.

TEC Online Academy offers courses that are taught by teachers in TEC’s participating districts. TEC Online Academy was created in 2009, and even though Wayland is part of TEC, its courses have never been offered at WHS.

According to Mizoguchi, Latin and English teacher Ed DeHoratius has taught classes through TEC Online Academy for a number of years, and next year, history teacher Eva Urban will begin teaching through TEC Online Academy as well.

Although both TEC Online Academy and TECCA are run through The Education Cooperative, the two are very different.

TECCA is an entirely virtual high school that the Massachusetts Department of Education has approved. The courses offered through TECCA are run by Pearson, an educational company that creates and distributes textbooks in addition to offering online classes, not member district teachers like TEC Online Academy.

WHS has been given forty prepaid courses for next year, but the school district will have to pay for any additional courses after the first forty. Students can take courses on everything from sports management to AP microeconomics once they sign up through their guidance counselor. However, there are some restrictions on what courses students are allowed to take.

“It only counts toward credits here when it is a course that is not offered here, and it’s for elective credit,” Mizoguchi said. “So basically you couldn’t take senior English through TECCA because it’s a course that’s offered here, but if it’s a course that’s not offered here, we would say, ‘go for it.’”

According to Mizoguchi, these courses are designed for students who have an interest that is outside of the courses that WHS offers.

“If I were to describe the profile of a student who was taking an online course in addition to their regular load at Wayland High School, it’s obviously a student who is so passionate about this particular area of study that they are going to make the time in their already busy life to pursue this as a high schooler,” Mizoguchi said. “It’s a student who has discipline and who can learn independently.”

When a student takes an online course, either with TEC Online Academy or TECCA, they will receive a separate transcript. The transcript will indicate the course, the number of credits they get from that course and the grade the student received. However, the grade the student gets will not factor into their GPA at WHS because the course was taken through an outside institution.

According to Mizoguchi, one challenge will be making it possible for students to take these courses.

“I’m very curious to see how interested and able students are to really access these courses,” Mizoguchi said. “So many of our students are so fully invested here, they’ve got their music, their full academic load, their electives, their art and sports after school. There’s not a lot of time to pursue other interests beyond that.”

A full list of courses offered at TECCA can be found here.