Dear Parent,

The ODE faculty and staff wish to welcome you and your student to our distance education program.

ASMS has been a distance education provider since 1998, when we received a Goals 2000 Grant to increase educational opportunities in Arkansas' rural areas. Our program began with 228 students in 24 participating schools. ASMS offered only two courses that year: Spanish I and Calculus.

Today, the ASMS Office of Distance Education employees fourteen full-time faculty members, offers more than a dozen different courses and serves approximately 1700 students in 48 school districts across the state. The largest program of its kind in Arkansas, ODE continually strives for excellence in education.

As schools nationwide seek to address challenges posed by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the state mandates that flow from that legislation, we believe they will continue to turn to distance education. There is much we can do to respond to those needs:

  • Distance education can be particularly beneficial to small districts looking for ways to meet ADE requirements for a more diverse curriculum.

  • Distance education can help students reach proficiency goals by offering a deeper, broader selection of coursework.

  • Distance education can help teachers become and remain highly qualified by providing professional development opportunities, including graduate coursework.

  • Distance education can help districts meet the needs of their students when they can't find a certified teacher, when limited demand for a particular course makes it impractical for a single school to offer, or when demand unexpectedly exceeds the ability of a school to accommodate with its existing faculty.

  • Distance education can help schools identified for improvement retain students by providing supplemental services and choice on site. This is especially important since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 gives students in failing schools the right to transfer to other schools, even other districts.

The teachers at ODE are dedicated professional educators who understand and appreciate your child's particular needs. We would like to offer our assistance in any way possible to both you and your student, because we understand that working together is the only way to ensure your student has the most educationally rewarding experience possible.

We thank you for letting ODE be a part of your child's education.

Sincerely,

ASMSA ODE