Below are four news items from the NACOL forums that haven’t made it into my Virtual Schooling in the News feature yet, so I figured I should re-post them here.
Virtual school is now reality in Wyoming
By JENNIFER MEESE, News-Record Writer
Published: Thursday, March 13, 2008 12:43 PM MDTAdd one more school to Campbell County School District’s lengthy list — only this one won’t cost anything to build.
The Wyoming Virtual School will become an official school next year, under a measure passed by lawmakers Friday. The school will be open to students across Wyoming and the state will foot the bill for it.
The Campbell County School District has funded the virtual school since it opened in the 2006-2007 school year, and under direction from the Wyoming Department of Education, limited enrollment to Campbell County residents. The school was in danger of shutting its virtual doors at the end of this year if it did not get state funding.
Wyoming decided not to fund the school until creating a task force last summer to study virtual schools. Task force members reported to the Legislature, which in turn decided to allow for “distance education” learning, which includes several methods of learning online.
The next step is for the State Department of Education to enact rules and regulations for virtual schools, said Wyoming Virtual School Principal Roger Larsen, a member of the task force. Based on his conversations with education department employees, he said that should happen “very soon.”
Larsen and virtual school teachers are excited about expanding the scope of the school, both in distance and grades.
“There’s a lot of interest around the state,” Larsen said. “A lot of people contacted me.
“The school is K-6 right now, and we’re exploring the possibility of expanding up to eighth grade next year.”
Several parents said they were excited about that possibility.
“I’d really like to see the program go through 12 years,” parent Paula Clymer said. “Not everyone likes to be like everyone else.”
K-9 would be great in itself, she said.
“Junior high is a hard three years,” she added.
Virtual school teachers said they were “ecstatic” to hear about the legislation.
“That was really good news for us,” teacher Greg Schliske said. “It’s exciting to get more people on board.”
Teacher Susan Bennett added, “We’ve been waiting two years for this.”
VIRTUAL FUNDING
- Campbell County School District must finance the Wyoming Virtual School next year. The state will count the number of students enrolled and give the district that amount of money the following year.
- Other school districts with interested students must enter into an agreement with Campbell County School District. The state will pay the school district where the student lives, which will, in turn, pay Campbell County School District.
- Any school district can open a virtual school, which would be funded in the same way.
Source: Roger Larsen, Wyoming Virtual School principal
New Online High School Opens Its Virtual Doors Across Idaho for 2008-2009 School Year
BOISE, Idaho, March 13 /PRNewswire/ — In an age when education is a mouse-click away, a new level of online education excellence has come to Idaho. The addition of iSucceed Virtual High School gives Idaho its first online public high school presence that offers diplomas, iMentor support and nationally respected quality in education. Created by a group of committed community leaders, the school has a specific focus on meeting the needs of underserved students.
“This is an exciting opportunity for young Idahoans and their parents,” said Don Pena, President of the iSucceed Board with a longtime involvement in Idaho education and Hispanic affairs. “Everything is reachable, clickable, and accessible because of the internet. The web is giving kids opportunities they never had before. That means that students in rural areas, students of color, students who have been home-schooled, and students who lead busy lives have new options for going to high school.”
iSucceed Virtual High School Inc. is an Idaho nonprofit corporation. Pena is joined on the governing board by a strong team of community leaders across the state including Derrick Boles, founder and President of Game Time International; Korene Gonzalez of the Community Council of Idaho; Jeffery Tunison, Senior Vice President Intermountain Community and Magic Valley Banks; and Zee Quintana, a Business Planning Analyst at Hewlett Packard Company and Executive Director of Mujeres Unidas de Idaho. iSucceed Virtual High School is a school within the Insight Schools Inc. family.
The school is a statewide, full-time, diploma-granting online public high school created to address myriad student challenges and opportunities. Prospective students include those whose needs may not be well-served in a traditional school setting: advanced learners; full-time wage earners; students with health or physical challenges; and those who may have struggled socially in a traditional school. To ensure accessibility to students across the state, the school will provide a free laptop, printer and internet reimbursement to enrolled students.
iSucceed’s “iMentor” program is a unique offering in the online education world. The program is a comprehensive approach to ensure that students get the support they need. In addition to the iMentor program students have 24-hour technical and tutoring support available to them, on-demand seven days a week.
Lisa Brennan, recently enrolled her daughter, Taylor, in Insight School of Oregon. The Brennans left another Oregon online school that wasn’t a fit for their family. “The level of communication, caring and support my family and I received from the staff at Insight blew us away. We were very impressed. I knew Insight would be a place where Taylor would thrive, and that she would get the attention she needed due to Insight’s iMentor program,” said Brennan.
We formed iSucceed because we saw needs in our community and felt iSucceed would be an excellence resource for our community,” said Derrick Boles, iSucceed board member. “Until now, Idaho hasn’t had this caliber of digital education to offer students to help them succeed in today’s marketplace. We are excited to offer students this alternative for academic excellence.”
iSucceed will hold information sessions for families and students in communities across the state March 27 – April 5. The inaugural iSucceed class will begin in September.
About iSucceed Virtual High School — Offering more than three times as many quality courses than any online public high school in Idaho, including AP and Honors classes, iSucceed is setting the standard in online education. All teachers are certified and the iMentor program offers unparalleled support in digital education. Students from around the state of Idaho are eligible to enroll, tuition-free for Idaho residents. For more info, see http://www.isucceedvhs.net/ or call 800.211.1687.
Oregon board: Online charter schools may get waivers later
03/13/2008
By JULIA SILVERMAN / Associated PressPetitions for waivers to allow Oregon students to enroll in two online charter schools were turned down Thursday by the state Board of Education.
But board members held out some hope for the two schools, telling them their request would likely be granted if they met a series of conditions.
The issue has been watched all over Oregon by school districts worried about waivers of the requirement that online charter schools must enroll at least 50 percent of their students from a sponsoring school district.
School superintendents were concerned that the waivers would spark an exodus from their districts. That would mean the loss of state funding of about $5,400 per student.
But without the waiver, it’s not particularly profitable or practical for the national companies behind online charter schools to open in Oregon, because they will be limited in how many students they can attract.
One proposed school would have been operated by Insight Schools, a company affiliated with the for-profit University of Phoenix. The online school would have been sponsored by the Newport-based Lincoln County School District, which would get to keep a small portion of the per-student funding for every student that enrolled in the online school.
The other, the Oregon Virtual Academy, is backed by Virginia-based K12 Inc. and would be chartered by the North Bend School District, near Coos Bay.
Charter schools operate under a contract with a school district or the state and receive public funding. Such schools, which must be open to any student, are designed to encourage experimentation and are free of many of the regulations that govern traditional public schools.
Most charter schools are housed in buildings. But Oregon is home to one mega-virtual charter school, the Oregon Connections Academy, which enrolls more than 1,500 students. When the 50 percent requirement was approved, the Connections Academy was grandfathered in, so it has been able to enroll students from across the state.
On Thursday, state board members meeting in Salem told representatives of the two other virtual schools that they should reapply for the waivers, as long as they stick to a list of recommendations that would:
_ Require the sending district to approve student transfers into the online school.
_ Limit the Oregon Virtual Academy to 100 students per grade, with a K-8 program.
_ Limit Insight of Oregon to 500 students, both full time and part time.
_ Limit the waiver until July 1, 2010 for both programs.
_ Ensure that there is an acceptable student-teacher ratio, that all teachers are licensed, that Oregon standards are being met and that performance audits are being conducted by a third party.
The Oregon Virtual Academy backers plan to reapply, state schools official said. There was no immediate word on whether Insight planned to follow suit.
Bedford County, VA schools win grants for more AP courses
By Christa Desrets
Published: March 12, 2008
All three Bedford County high schools are expected to offer new Advanced Placement courses next year after receiving a projected $1.4 million in grants from an initiative designed to increase enrollment and AP scores in mathematics, science and English.
Leading the charge, Bedford County schools received three of only 14 such grants given in the state — more than any other school division.“We’re just very excited, and we feel very fortunate to be able to provide these extra opportunities to our students,” said Tammy Parlier, director of instruction for the school system. AP courses give students the option to earn college credit for the class if they pass an exam administered at the end of the school year.
Over the course of five years, the grants are projected to give Jefferson Forest, Liberty and Staunton River high schools a total of more than $1.4 million, Parlier said, adding that the dollar figures are preliminary.
In the first year alone, the three schools are projected to receive nearly $250,000.
“We are at the very beginnings of this,” Parlier said. “We will have our first planning meeting in the next couple of weeks, and that’s when we’re going to hammer out some of these specifics.”
The grant would be used to gradually increase the number of AP courses offered, add to enrollment in AP classes that are already offered and train the teachers who would instruct the new courses.
This is the first cycle of Advanced Placement Project grants that Virginia Advanced Study Strategies is
administering.Paul C. Nichols III, president of VASS, said in a news release Wednesday that the group plans to add more schools to the project in the coming years, if funding is available.
The new course offerings will vary for each Bedford County high school, Parlier said, but likely will focus in the areas of math and science, since AP courses already are offered in English.
Examples of the new courses include AP biology, chemistry, calculus and statistics, she said.
“They really have tailor-made a plan for each school,” she said. “We are hoping that we will just grow by leaps and bounds.”
Currently, Jefferson Forest High School offers 12 AP classes, Liberty offers 10 and Staunton River offers seven.“I think that students will benefit from a wider variety of course offerings, and they also will benefit from the professional trainings that the teachers will receive,” Parlier said.
The school division will look into training teachers who already are in place before considering hiring more teachers for the new classes, Parlier said.
According to the news release Wednesday, recipients of the grant must “demonstrate a willingness to overcome obstacles to increasing AP participation and performance by adding AP classes, altering AP access policies, and making adjustments to school calendars, if needed, to support the AP program.”
