Once you head inside the Rebound School of Opportunity, you’ll see this school is a bit different than the others in the West Ada School District.

“Some students can’t perform in that cookie cutter classroom where class time is what we’re looking for,” said program coordinator of Virtual School House Charles Maxwell.

Students at Rebound come from across the West Ada School District to get a second chance at earning their comprehensive high school diplomas, just as they would in any other school in the district.

“It has a stigma, of like the delinquent school, but a lot of us here aren’t here because we got in trouble, we’re here because we’re just trying to get our work done,” said student Mary Baker.

Some have left their former, traditional high schools for reasons outside the classroom.

“We’ve had a couple of devastations in our family,” said Baker, “and so that always took a toll, just the personal aspect of it always took a toll on me in school because if my minds on another place I can’t focus on my work here,”

Mary says the difference between this school and her former lies not within the curriculum but the flexibility to complete it. Deadlines are given weeks in advance so students can plan accordingly.

“We have students that sometimes finish a class in 2-3 weeks, others that take 10-15 weeks because it isn’t their strongest subject,” said Maxwell.

Maxwell says having the ability to be scored based on their completion and understanding of the material, not on their attendance, helps students deal with the stress a traditional school brings.

“When I was going to my other school, my stress levels were so high I’d come home crying because I couldn’t manage it, and I’d have to talk to a counselor, but now that I’m here I don’t even have a counselor anymore,” said student Thomas Farrar.

While students are finishing up their online coursework for the day, they’re an assignment closer to getting their diploma.

You can get more information about the School of Opportunity here . You can get more information on the online curriculum here.