WEST SALEM — Some days Mark Katsma wants to study medicine when he graduates from Coulee Christian School. Other days, the 17-year-old is more business-minded.

He’s hoping online courses in anatomy and physiology, and advanced placement microeconomics and macroeconomics will help him decide his future — while giving him a few college credits to boot.
Principal Dan Odenbach said those are just a few of the goals of Coulee Christian Online Academy, a virtual school that opened Sept. 2 with 20 students enrolled in classes to complement the offerings of Coulee Christian School.

The online school increased Coulee Christian’s offerings to students in grades 6-12 by nearly 200 courses overnight while keeping costs to families reasonable, Odenbach said.

“This (the online learning academy) is the only one of its kind in the La Crosse area — there’s no other Christian online program in the Midwest and no one will offer support services like we do,” Odenbach said. “This is a creative way to expand out our borders and meet the area’s educational needs.”

For more on this story, see Monday’s La Crosse Tribune.

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