Dickson County High School graduated 91.7 percent of seniors, compared to 87 percent last year.

Chandler attributes those increases to the implementation of graduation coaches.

“Coach Julian Holly at Dickson County and Rodney Parker at Creek Wood, they work with those kids on keeping them on track with any credits that they’re behind and need to make up,” Chandler said.

In addition to Holly and Parker, the implementation of the virtual high school this year has also bolstered the graduation rates.

“We had 61 graduates that graduated because they got to make up some credits that they wouldn’t have,” Chandler said.

According to Chandler, 438.5 credit hours were awarded for online coursework.

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The virtual high school says its list of client schools has grown to 770, up 34 percent in two years, because of local budget cuts.

Nationwide, an estimated 1.03 million students at the K-12 level took an online course in 2007-08, up 47 percent from two years earlier, according to the Sloan Consortium, an advocacy group for online education. About 200,000 students attend online schools full-time, often charter schools that appeal to home-schooling families, according to another report.

The growth has come despite a cautionary review of research by the U.S. Department of Education in 2009. It found benefits in online courses for college students but concluded that few rigorous studies had been done at the K-12 level, and policymakers “lack scientific evidence of the effectiveness” of online classes.

The fastest growth has been in makeup courses for students who failed a regular class. Advocates say the courses let students who were bored or left behind learn at their own pace.

But even some proponents of online classes are dubious about makeup courses, also known as credit recovery — or, derisively, click-click credits — which high schools, especially those in high-poverty districts, use to increase graduation rates and avoid federal sanctions.

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