We have been around a long time!

At church last night, I met a man who took correspondence courses from West Phoenix High School in 1968. The district that ran the correspondence program at West Phoenix High School was Phoenix Union High School District. In 1969, Phoenix Union made the correspondence program a separate corporation from the district. The new company was Phoenix Special Programs and Academies, which is known today as Blueprint Education.

It was very interesting talking about distance learning in the context of 41 years of history. The man's parents were missionaries and he took a year of distance learning courses before moving back to Phoenix to live with his grandparents to go to high school. He said it was the hardest year of education he had and he was an electrical enigneer major in college. He talked about Algebra and the difficulty he had learning it from a textbook. We talked about how he learned Algebra by working out the odd programs in the textbooks because they had the answers and when he felt he could work the even problems to send back to the school for grading.

The conversation was wonderful because it reminds me of how long Blueprint Education has been in the business of distance learning and alternative education. Forty years is a long time!