By Jennifer Stultz
Tri-County Tribune Editor
jstultz@cherryroad.com
Bailey Oltmanns, 16 going on 17, is smiling these days. Gone are her anxieties over school deadlines, educational status, peer pressure among perceived friends, and she said last week that she now has hope for the future. That was something she had given up on after struggling with bullying, peer pressure, and the rigors of traditional brick and mortar education for the past several years in Pratt.
“I decided to try online schooling because I just wasn’t getting anywhere,” Oltmanns said. “I was struggling to meet deadlines, I couldn’t understand the material. I have ADHD and so it was really hard for me to focus on anything in the traditional classroom setting. I just got to the point where I gave up.”
Oltmanns said she had heard about online school options during her 8th grade year in brick-and-mortar school but didn’t want to lose her friends. She stuck it out for three more years but found herself depressed and feeling hopeless that she could ever amount to anything.
“This choice isn’t for everyone,” she said. “But if there are other people out there struggling, I want them to know there are options that work. My grades are a lot better now. I’m actually getting A’s and B’s instead of failing everything. I’m thinking about what I might want to do next. I never had that hope before, that I could actually learn enough to have a future. I am so much happier.”
Oltmanns credits her educational and life improvement on her enrollment in the Kansas Connections Academy online education system. She now has a rigorous class schedule that includes consumer math, digital design, sign language, environment science, and video game design. But instead of dreading classwork, she now enjoys school.
“Before if I didn’t get something or it took me longer than others to turn an assignment in, I would get so many points taken off that I would fail, no matter how hard I tried,” Oltmanns said. “Now, if I have a question or don’t understand, I can go back and watch the instructions over and over, however many times I need to. I am on my own schedule to do my work, but I still have deadlines. They are just so much more manageable now. I can make choices about it, and I am so much happier.”
Oltmanns said that every school day, she gets up, logs into her school portal and checks her homepage schedule. There she finds her lessons and assignments for the week and can prioritize how much time she might need to spend on each one. She gets frequent reminders that help her keep on track for turning in her assignments. Once each week she has Zoom meetings with her teachers and they answer any questions about she might have and provide encouragement.
“I just like this a lot better,” Oltmanns said. “I have the freedom to do each assignment in the time frame that works for me. I can’t skip ahead, and they don’t let you get behind; it just works better.”
Oltmanns said leaving behind the social anxiety of dealing with difficult people on a daily basis in a brick-and-mortar setting was also something that she did not miss.
“I found out that people who I thought were my friends really weren’t my friends, and those who really are my friends, I still talk to every day. This has been a big change in my life. I am a lot less stressed,” she said.
Oltmanns was recently nominated by one of her online teachers as a student who has made positive changes in her life. She agreed to share her online education story because it might help someone else see that there are options that can help, even when one feels helpless.
She smiles about her educational achievements now, and she enjoys the classes she is taking. She even has a few plans and dreams for the future. That is something she had lost the ability to do.
“I’m learning a lot now,” she said. “It feels good to be able to accomplish things.”
