By whipping out his laptop aboard a recent flight to New York, one teacher took a group of nine sixth graders to new heights, holding a class from his seat 30,000 feet in the air.

Rabbi Chaim Goldstein, an instructor with the Shluchim Online School that serves Chabad-Lubavitch emissary families in areas without Jewish day schools, was heading back home after spending the holiday of Passover with his wife’s family in El Paso. When the time came to board his American Airlines flight home, however, plans for a substitute had fallen through.

“I taught my morning class in El Paso,” explains Goldstein, “but as I was boarding, I still couldn’t find a substitute for my next class. So I hoped to log on using American’s Wi-Fi service. Ten minutes into the flight, I asked everyone around me for permission, and they were actually all quite supportive.”

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A project of the New York-based Shluchim Office, an organization that caters to the needs of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries and their families, the online school launched four years ago to ease the hardships faced by couples who either had to home-school their children or send them away to schools in larger communities. Today, it employs more than 70 teachers and serves more than 400 students in such locations as Barranquilla, Colombia, and Sochi, Russia.

Throughout Goldstein’s flight, his nine students – who hail from Salt Lake City; Orlando, Fla.; S. Diego, Calif.; and other places – were transfixed by an image of their teacher leading lessons from an airline cabin. The staff at the online school was equally amazed.

“We were all very excited,” says Rabbi Moshe Shemtov, the school’s director. “It was very symbolic of the dedication of the men and women who teach in this school.”

Mendy Konikov, 10, whose parents direct Chabad of South Orlando, says that he was so entertained that he called his parents over to watch.

According to Konikov, the class continued unabated until a flight attendant passed by and asked Goldstein to straighten his seat back, stow his tray table, and turn off his computer.

“So we got a 20 minute recess.”