A Day in the Life of a Holston Academy Student: Trey
Student: Trey
Grade: 11
Hobbies: Skiing, wakeboarding, playing with his dog Sammy
Location: Tahoe Vista, CA
Why Holston:
Trey is a dedicated skier who has aspirations of pursuing alpine skiing at the Olympic level, but it is very important to Trey’s family that he earn a college degree. Trey has been recruited by Sierra Nevada University on a full scholarship for skiing and needs a flexible school option that will allow him to finish his high school credits and continue dedicating his free time to training.
Trey’s Courses:
Trey is an 11th grader taking Algebra 2, Language Arts 11, World History, Physics, and Spanish 2. He’s recently taken an interest in graphic design, so he added an elective, Adobe Photoshop, that he’ll take in the second semester.
Trey’s Academic Coach meets with him and his mom monthly to review his academic progress and help coach him through any challenges he may be having. His Academic Coach is focused on helping Trey with time management skills and staying on track in his courses. His teachers are available for weekly meetings, and those meetings are up to Trey to schedule for himself as needed if he wants to review any concepts with them. The independence of managing his own schedule and navigating his coursework has taught Trey time management skills and helped him to take ownership over his education.
A Typical Day for Trey:
8 a.m.
Trey knows he’s a morning person, but has to get some exercise to wake him up before starting his school day. After 30 minutes in his home gym, he has breakfast and takes a shower.
9 a.m.
Trey has worked with his Academic Coach to create block scheduling after determining this was the most efficient way for him to tackle his coursework. Trey spends the first two hours on Mondays and Wednesdays working through his Algebra 2 lessons. He’s stuck on some of the concepts in Chapter 3, so he schedules a meeting with his teacher for the following day so they can review the concepts together.
11:15 am
Trey takes a break to have a snack and play with his dog in the backyard before he dives into his next subject, Language Arts 11, which he focuses on for the next two hours on Mondays and Wednesdays. Trey eats a quick lunch after wrapping up his Language Arts 11 coursework.
1:30 pm
Trey heads to the mountain where he meets his team to ski and train for the next 3 hours.
5:00 pm
Trey arrives home and has dinner with his family.
6:00 pm
Monday through Thursday, Trey spends an hour after dinner working through his Spanish 2 lessons.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Trey spends the first two hours of his school day on Physics. It’s his least favorite class, so he likes to tackle it first thing in the morning. The second two hours of are spent on World History lessons. On Fridays, Trey spends his entire day at the mountain with his ski team practicing and training. If he needs more time to focus on a subject or get caught up on school work, he will skip the morning training session on Fridays or spend time on a Saturday getting caught up.
Why did you make the switch to online school?
I want to take my skiing to the next level, and knew I was going to need a more flexible option for school. My local public school wasn’t going to make the accommodations for me, so my parents suggested looking into online school. Holston put together an Academic Plan and helping me with my schedule so I could juggle school and training without getting stressed out. It was the best decision I could have made!”
How does online school help you achieve your goals?
“Without the level of flexibility I have with Holston, I wouldn’t be able to dedicate enough time to training. And since I want to go to college, helped me plan out the next two years and teaching me time management is huge. I wouldn’t have thought I could juggle training as many hours as I am with getting my school work done, but their schedule and flexibility is helping me make it happen!”