The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the lives of Alberta students in a variety of ways. For Aidan Kometz, a 16-year-old competitive ski racer, that disruption came in the form of highly restrictive training schedule for his athletic passion, which forced him to get creative with his schooling.

“Ski racing is a demanding and competitive sport with heavy training requirements,” Aidan explains. “Due to COVID, we were forced to train from Tuesday to Friday only, when the facilities were open. That’s almost the entire school week, and I was finding it very hard to do my schoolwork.”

Aidan was familiar with Vista Virtual School through some of his fellow skiers, but it was his guidance counsellor at Springbank Community High School (west of Calgary) who suggested he take some of his courses online through VVS. He is currently enrolled in Social 20-1, and while he is still taking most of his courses through his home school, he plans on doing more of his grade 12 year online.

Aidan has found his VVS experience thus far to be overwhelmingly positive.

“It’s been a really great experience,” he asserts. “The resources—you’re provided with a ton of links, resources with writing skills, how to position papers, and so on. I also really like how in touch the teachers are. I can email my teachers and they get back to me within a day. I’m never left hanging for long.”

Adjusting to online learning with VVS was made easy thanks to the introductory E-Learning and Learning Management Systems (COM1255) course, he notes.

“The four-part introduction to distance learning showed me where everything was and how to find things. That really helped. I think it’s set up very well, how the website dashboard works well. Also, I’ve found the self-check quizzes to be really helpful, and again the teacher support has been awesome.”

Even with the online component of his education, Aidan found it a challenge to juggle his training and competition schedule with school, with deadlines proving to be onerous at times.

“The deadlines for each unit (at VVS) are tough to deal with. I was at a training camp in Switzerland for a time and had a difficult time accessing WiFi, which meant that I had to complete an entire unit’s worth of work in two weeks when I got back. A bit more flexibility around deadlines might be a welcome change.”

Despite these challenges though, Aidan says he is quick to recommend VVS to his fellow ski racers. When asked what his advice would be to other students considering distance learning, he asserts that spreading work out over the course of the semester is key to being successful.

“It’s easy to let the relaxed atmosphere of teachers not being on your case for assignments to go to your head, but that would be a mistake” he says. “Good time management is essential. It’s important not to procrastinate on your work and end up having to do it all in a few days.”

Aidan has big goals, both academically and athletically, with hopes of finishing the year with a 95 percent average (which he acknowledges is tough with his training schedule) while also hoping to place in the top five for his age group. Ultimately, he hopes to go to university to pursue something he enjoys (possibly engineering) and also to become a skiing coach.

Vista Virtual School invariably looks to be a big part of his near-term future.

“If I continue my racing next year, which is the hope, I might have to go fully online or at least 50 percent online,” he says.

“All in all, it’s the perfect solution for kids who need like me who need some flexibility. It’s a really good option.”