Virtual High School ready to go in Bayfield - no board of ed involved
The Virtual High School (Ontario) has 45 teachers and 4,300 students sitting at computers all over the place.
By mid-January, some 15 support technicians and administrators (now working in a basement in Bayfield) will be ensconced in a practically all-new structure boasting handcrafted pine posts and beams and packed with the latest in ultra-modern computer and communications technology.
Rasing the building was a moment loaded with symbolism, a cup of cheer toasting a brighter future for both the reborn Ritz and a new life for the entire lakeshore community of Bayfield.
First, what was the hotel is coming back in familiar Victorian guise, but with a new and promising purpose, after an up-and-down history that included that devastating 1946 fire that reduced the Ritz to ashes and almost destroyed the entire village.
Second, its current rebirth as headquarters for the Virtual High School launches Bayfield (permanent population 1,000; summer population 2,500) into a whole new orbit as a small community with a world-leading enterprise - educating students all over the globe via the Internet - that promises substantial year-round employment for the first time in the sleepy summer resort's history.
"This is going to change our world dramatically. There are so many possible spinoffs that it's nearly unfathomable," says permanent resident Gillian, a retired banker.
The Virtual High School, founded by former high-school teacher Steve Baker in 2002, already has some 45 qualified teachers under contract teaching degree courses to 4,300 students, mostly from Ontario - but with representation all over the world in places such as India, China, Africa and South America.
Teachers can work from their home-computer desks, but the small but growing administrative staff - now quartered in several buildings scattered around this lakeshore community - will now have a spectacular and special headquarters to work from, thanks to Baker's insistence the reincarnated Ritz Hotel be more than a collection of offices.
Read more at http://www.lfpress.com/homes/2011/12/22/19159421.html#.TwSG3AEbS04.facebook
