Frequently Asked Questions

Any Appleton Area School District student grades nine through twelve may request enrollment in eSchool courses. Classes may be taken as Part of their Schedule (Blended Schedule) or as an Extension of their schedule.

Special consideration will be given to students with significant life obstacles: i.e. dropouts, adjudicated and/or incarcerated youth, teen parents, homebound students, students with physical, mental or emotional difficulties, voluntarily withdrawn or expelled students, self-supporting youth, transient students, students in treatment programs.

Appleton Area School District residents who have not completed their graduation requirements and have not reached the age of 20 are eligible to take courses through Appleton eSchool whether or not they are attending any other district school. (Age 22 for EEN).

• To gain a high school online learning experience
• The course not available due to a schedule conflict
• The course is not available at your school
• To improve your grade for a previously taken course
• To recover the credit for a previously failed course
• To accommodate a unique schedule (study abroad, sports, extracurricular)

Yes, 8th-grade students may enroll in a summer interim class during the summer prior to their freshman year. During the school year, middle school students residing in the Appleton School District may be eligible for courses taken for enrichment but not high school credit.

Appleton Area School District residents that are Home School students or students attending a private school, may take up to two courses per semester and still maintain their home school or private school status. Either or both of these could be online courses.

Adults over the age of 20 may be allowed to take online courses to complete their diploma requirements, if they are within 6 credits of earning their diploma and are either currently a resident of the Appleton Area School District or they earned most of their high school credits through one of the Appleton public high schools. These requests are considered on a case -by-case basis.

eSchool offers “Onging” start dates. Students can choose to start classes from September through February. Please see our Key Date Timeline for exact enrollment dates. Placement will be based on the availability within the requested course and is contingent upon successful completion of the online orientation.

All academic courses required for graduation are available in online format as well as Advanced Placement courses and a wide variety of electives.

Registration details are here.

For a school year course, your next step is to upload your student contract and wait for counselor review. Once your counselor has approved your course, the status of your request will change to “waiting registrar review”. If you have an approved request and you have uploaded the contract, you can expect to be enrolled in the orientation during the next school day. Friday approvals will generally be processed on Monday.

1. First take a picture or make a scan of your signed contract. Make sure the information is easy to read on your picture.
2. Visit appletoneschool.org and click on Login eSchool courses
3. Login with your username and password
4. Click “Upload Files”, then “Browse” and find your scan or picture and select “open”.
5. Type “student contract” in the description box and click “Upload”
6. If your contract fails to save to your account, the file may be too large. See if you can save your file to a different form at or with a lower resolution.

This mini online course helps prepare students to be successful online learners. Students report it typically takes 2-3 hours to complete. Upon successful completion of the Orientation mini-course (after receiving a final grade), the student will be enrolled in their chosen course.

If you previously completed an orientation and successfully passed an online class, you will complete a refresher orientation. You will be able to skip ahead and do only module 4. With each new school year or summer interim session, all students complete some version of the online orientation once per school year or summer interim session.

Your coach is also your teacher for your Online Orientation class. They provide support, encouragement and assistance as needed and also act as a liaison with the online teacher.  Please contact your coach with questions regarding your orientation, if you need help with your pacing or end date, and to schedule your final exam.

Students typically have 2 weeks from the date of their First Day of Class session (during the school year) to determine if online learning is a good fit for them. Students can drop their online courses without consequences during this designated drop window.

Plan to commit as many hours to an online course as you would spend attending a course in the classroom. For example, a student completing a class (.5 credit) in a semester, would typically spend from 5-7 hours per week on the course. If you plan to complete a full credit course in one semester you would need to spend 10-14 hours per week on the course. If you do not have strong reading skills you may have to spend more time each week in order to maintain an appropriate pace.

Students will always start by taking one course. After successfully completing one course a student can request taking two courses simultaneously. Students seeking full-time online status must follow the Appleton Area School District protocol for placement at a school other than their high school of residence.

Pace plans identify assignment due dates. Students are expected to stay on pace with these due dates to achieve course completion by the target end-date. Assignment grades may be reduced for submissions beyond the pace plan due date. If pacing needs to be revised, students are generally allowed one chance to adjust their course target end date during the regular school year.

If a student is not on pace within the first two weeks of the course start date, they may consider dropping within the designated grace period (usually the first two weeks). Students may receive notice of a possible administrative withdrawal if they are not on pace by the end of week two. Throughout the duration of the course, students are required to submit at least one current assignment for each online course every calendar week (The eSchool calendar week runs Wednesday-Tuesday).

Students violating this minimum attendance may receive notice of truancy requiring response by the parent or guardian. If there are extenuating circumstances interfering with the student’s ability to meet these attendance requirements, it is the responsibility of the parent or guardian mentor to contact the online teacher and/or the eSchool office staff. This information is outlined in our required student contract.

Regularly checking your email and/or logging in to your guardian account will provide key information concerning student progress. For help checking student progress, see our parent page.

If you are attending an Appleton Area School District school, contact the guidance counselor or academic advisor assigned to you at your school. If you are only taking classes through the eSchool, the office staff will answer and direct your questions as needed.

A student can expect a response to emails by the end of the next school day after the email is received. Assignments are typically graded within 48 hours on school days. Email is typically the most efficient means to communicate with your online teacher. Some teachers provide regular office hours when they are available via web conference or phone. These may be used for tutoring, oral assessments or collaborative activities.

The majority of our enrollments are taught by AASD eSchool teachers right here in Appleton.  Our goal is to have our online eSchool courses taught by local AASD teachers. In fact, this is one of the eSchool governing board’s strategic goals. As part of our innovative charter, historically we have had to access online courses via our WEN partner schools/districts because we have not had enough staff allocation in the many online course titles that we offer to offer all classes with local staff.

Our teachers have helped provide space in online courses for students across Wisconsin school districts and in exchange we have utilized space in other online courses that we have not had capacity locally. Swapping enrollments has helped us provide access to our students a wide variety of online courses that did not run in AASD. With the increased interest in virtual learning, eSchool is hoping to staff most, if not all, of our online courses, with AASD teachers.