YAKIMA, Wash. -- Carolyn Kondor completed her freshman year at Yakima's Eisenhower High School. But it was a struggle.

At Ike, the teen says, there were too many students, too many distractions, too many stressors. There was just "too much of everything."

So, about three months into her sophomore year, she transferred to the newly formed Yakima Online! She's a senior now, 17, and still enrolled in the online high school. Her sights are set on graduation in June. "It's a good fit for me," she says. "I love the people here. It's easygoing, but it keeps you on track."

Yakima Online!, in its third year, offers an alternative to the district's traditional, brick-and-mortar high schools and its other, more conventional, alternative programs.

And interest and enrollment are increasing, according to Arlene Franz, coordinator of online programs for the Yakima School District.

Started in fall 2007, Yakima Online! graduated four students its first year. Last year, 13 students graduated from the online school. And this year, Franz anticipates between 30 and 40 Yakima Online! graduates.

"It's all about options," says Franz, who helped start Yakima Online! and has worked with the school since its inception. "It's about individualizing learning for students and finding ways to help them be successful. We don't want anyone to be forgotten or left behind."

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Open to students in grades six through 12, Yakima Online! partners with Advanced Academics, an Oklahoma City-based company that has implemented online learning programs in 30 states.

Advanced Academics is a subsidiary of DeVry Inc., one of the largest publicly held, higher education companies in North America and the parent organization of DeVry University, among others.

While Yakima Online! -- a public school -- is free for students, the Yakima School District pays Advanced Academics $300 per student per course, according to Jack Irion, deputy superintendent for Yakima schools. Last year, he says, the district paid Advanced Academics about $390,000 in all.

Some of those costs are offset by the state, which reimburses the district about $5,100 for each full-time equivalent student enrolled in all of its schools, including Yakima Online!

Yakima Online! is available only to students who live in the Yakima School District. Enrollment hovers around 125 students. Nearly half are superseniors, or fifth-year seniors. Most are in grades 9-12. And almost all of them stay at least a year.

But, Franz says, "It depends on what the needs are."

Some Yakima Online! students come straight from middle school to make up credits and failed classes before transitioning to Ike or Davis, Stanton Academy or Yakima School of the Arts.

Some had fallen behind in traditional high school settings due to a variety of reasons, such as learning disabilities, work schedules, increased responsibilities at home, homelessness, and illness or other health-related issues, including pregnancy.

Some are at-risk students. Some are former dropouts who want to complete their high school education. Others are accelerated learners or previously homeschooled students.

Many -- like Kondor, who was diagnosed with depression three years ago -- come to Yakima Online! because it feels like a good fit.

"It works for me because I can work from home," Kondor says. "It's less stress. With my depression ... it doesn't become overwhelming."

But, she says, online school isn't for everyone: "You have to be very independent and have self-discipline."

Kondor, who works between 15 and 20 hours per week at a Yakima nursing home, says she possesses these qualities. Plus, she likes it here. And she's not the only one.

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Across the country, an increasing number of students are turning to online education to replace or supplement traditional schools. Enrollment in online courses reached 1 million in 2007, according to the North American Council for Online Learning.

And, as of last fall, 44 states offered significant supplemental or full-time online learning opportunities for students, according to the council. Some experts even predict up to half of all courses in grades 9-12 will be provided online by 2019.

"It is a growing educational pathway," says Mark Sobolik, in his second year as the on-site teacher at Yakima Online! Previously, he taught math and computer technology at Washington Middle School in Yakima for 25 years.

His role here is multifaceted. "I'm here to support kids -- academically, technologically, emotionally, socially," he says.

Yakima Online! -- whose mascot is the "cyber star" -- is a virtual school, but it's not all online. Midterm and final exams must be taken at the school. And students are required to check in with Sobolik in-person once a week. Once a month, they're supposed to bring a parent or guardian.

They are also required to put in 25 hours of school time per week. Most students complete their hours and assignments at home.

"Right now, we don't have enough computers to accommodate everyone," Franz says. "We need more."

The school is virtually a modern-day, one-room schoolhouse, with a classroom and offices in the old Yakima Valley Technical Skills Center on South 15th Avenue. Soon, Irion says, Yakima Online! plans to expand into two classrooms and add more computers.

The school is staffed by a counselor, registrar and secretary, in addition to Franz and Sobolik. It runs on a semester schedule. Students start with a required introductory course and work with staff to set up individual learning plans.

Online learning, Franz stresses, isn't only about credit retrieval. "It's a new way of learning," she says. "They do everything they do in regular school, they just do it different."

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Advanced Academics offers more than 140 courses, including electives and advanced and college preparatory classes. College credit through DeVry University is also available.

Courses, Irion says, are "competency-based." To some extent, students can work at their own pace. And students who work quickly can work ahead.

Twenty-year-old Sofia Gonzalez, for example, is trying to complete her junior and senior years of high school in one year. She had dropped out and is now married and the mother of a 7-month-old son. She says she likes the flexibility Yakima Online! offers and usually works from home.

"It has a lot of advantages," she says. In fact, without this option, "I wouldn't have gone back to school."

In its first year, Irion says, Yakima Online! primarily aimed to recapture and retain students who would otherwise be counted as dropouts. Now, in its third year, Yakima Online! has "really expanded in terms of who we serve."

"One of the things we found is that for some students, once they get into this particular mode of learning, they really enjoy it and it fits their particular learning style," Irion says. "For some students, they love it."

Cody Yearout is one of them. The 14-year-old freshman came here this fall straight from middle school.

"I got Cs, Ds and Fs in middle school, and I goofed around a lot when I shouldn't have," he says. Plus, "I got in trouble, sometimes."

These days, "I'm passing all my classes, and I don't have any distractions to distract me from my work.

"I'm actually staying out of trouble, even at home."

And he's hoping to earn "at least Bs or higher" and stay at Yakima Online! "'til I graduate, I hope."

So far, Sobolik says, "He's on track. He's doing the things we're asking him to do to be successful."

* Adriana Janovich can be reached at 509-577-7653 or ajanovich@yakimaherald.com.

* For more information about Yakima Online!, call Arlene Franz at 509-573-5045.

* On the Web: www.advancedacademics.com.