Elk Grove Unified School District has opened enrollment for its first-ever virtual school.

Students attending the school will have all the supplies needed to finish a school year delivered to their doorsteps. They will learn most of their lessons at home, but will visit a campus for tests and to meet occasionally with a teacher.

The school is free and open to any student in grades K-12 in Sacramento County – along with students in Amador, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Placer, San Joaquin, Solano, Sutter and Yolo counties.

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Written by Diana Lambert.

The K-12 students will be part of the district’s first-ever virtual school.

The box will contain grade-specific supplies – books, globes, maps – that students will need to finish a year of school from home.

Virtual schooling is gaining traction among California school districts looking for ways to increase revenue and decrease spending.

The cyber school could help the district bring back students who have left to attend charter or private schools, and could draw students from other districts, said Anne Zeman, director of curriculum and professional learning for the district. And with those additional students will come additional state funding.

Elk Grove will pay K12, the company that provides the instruction plans and materials, 85 to 90 percent of the $5,219 the district receives from the state for each student, Zeman said.

She said the district may not make any money on the endeavor, but she’s certain it won’t cost any more than it brings in. “We can’t afford to embark on a program that is a new expense,” she said.

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http://www.sacbee.com/2010/02/24/2560205/elk-grove-unified-to-open-a-virtual.html

It’s hard to believe the school year is halfway finished. My fifth-grade daughter has accomplished so much already and looks forward to what lies ahead.

I take great pride in being involved in my child’s education. I proofread my daughter’s book reports, help her study for tests and read aloud with her from books. But, I do it in the middle of the day. My daughter is a student with the Wisconsin Connections Academy (WCA) — a statewide, virtual public school.

She has textbooks and state-certified teachers just like every other fifth-grader in Wisconsin. The only difference is the building where she learns. Instead of a brick-and-mortar school, my daughter attends public school in the comfort of her own home. I can be directly involved in her lessons, and she can learn at her own pace. Her teachers are extremely devoted to her learning, and they communicate daily by phone or e-mail.

Our computer acts as a link between the school and my daughter, but she doesn’t spend every waking minute online.

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From WisconsinRapidsTribune.com

According to the Committee, work on virtual Sunday school project is underway.

“Thanks to this school Azerbaijani children and youth residing abroad will get an opportunity to get information on mother tongue, history, culture and geography of Azerbaijan,” the Committee says.

The project presentation will be organized as soon as the project is finished.

The district plans to open “Kelso Virtual Academy” in January, a move school officials hope will boost graduation rates by offering flexibility in completing course work and boost district enrollment by attracting students who otherwise would drop out.

In addition to core subjects, the school will offer electives and classes — including advanced placement classes — not available at Kelso High School, said Mary Beth Tack, director of secondary education for Kelso School District.

A half-time teacher has been hired by the district to facilitate classes next semester and be available to meet with students weekly. The district plans to pay the $35,000 to $40,000 teacher salary through revenue it generates by enrolling students who are currently home schooled or enrolled in an online program outside the district, said Superintendent Glenys Hill.

Attracting 10 students could more than pay for the teacher and costs of running the program, Hill said.

She estimated about 65 students have left Kelso schools to enroll in online high school programs.

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Kelso schools to open ‘Virtual Academy’ by Leila Summers

From The Daily News Online

The school in question is the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program, which offers internet-based courses for everyone from kindergartners to high school seniors. The online public school began just three years ago and already has served a few thousand students.

About half the children are taking courses to supplement their education in traditional public or private school classrooms. For the other half, the online school is their only school.

Gov. Jay Nixon announced last week that he was halting state funding for the online school’s second semester as part of $204 million in budget cuts caused by declining state revenues.

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Budget cuts threaten Missouri virtual school by staff

From eSchoolnews.com

Natalie Quade, a ninth-grader, converts cooking data into graphs using Microsoft Excel. Meanwhile, her brother, Ryan, a fifth-grader, silently jots down on a map the locations of landmarks such as the Taj Mahal and Mount Everest. It’s his geography homework through the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program, an online school for K-12 students.

Every Wednesday, the Quade family of Sturgeon studies at The Greens, where the children’s grandmother lives, before running other Columbia errands. Some 1,600 students statewide are like the Quade children: They study and learn through the online program, without a traditional school building or the direct supervision of a classroom teacher.

But come next semester, these students, teachers and parents likely will have to find a new way of schooling. The second semester of the program was eliminated last week as part of Gov. Jay Nixon’s $204 million in budget cuts, which included the elimination of about 200 full-time state jobs and 500 part-time positions.

“I can understand budget cuts,” said mother Carla Quade, a former accountant for the federal government, “but I can’t understand midsemester budget cuts.”

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Families react to virtual school loss by Jonathon Braden

From Columbia Daily Tribune

While President Barack Obama stops by Wright Middle School in Madison to talk about strengthening education, advocates of online public charter schools in Wisconsin hope his visit will highlight the restrictions on such schools, and encourage lawmakers to lift the enrollment cap.

“The virtual charter schools are under a cap of 5,250 students that are allowed to enroll in them. And that is, of course, a restriction on charter schools, which Obama has publicly stated he is not in favor of. He wants to get rid of restrictions on charter schools.”

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Virtual school advocates hopeful about Obama visit by Jackie Johnson

From Wisconsin Radio Network

“The virtual school, I think, is going to be fabulous,” Miles said. “The virtual school really is going to help our home-schooled students, our children in remote locations [and] our children [who are absent] for two or three weeks at a time.”

The virtual classroom will provide face-to-face instruction 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Staffs of teachers around the globe in different time zones will keep the “school” staffed. “Hubs” will help keep teachers from having to come in and teach on a second shift schedule.

“We’re establishing a hub already in Europe, [and] we have a hub that’s going to start in the fall in the Pacific, and then we’ll have a hub in [the United States],” Miles said.

The school will provide students with the opportunity to retake classes they’ve failed or classes not offered at their schools — including advanced placement classes — and to keep up with class work during an extended absence.

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Defense Schools’ Director Pleased With Year’s Accomplishments by Samantha L. Quigley

From DefenseLink News

 The district already offers virtual classes within it’s own program. But it is now required by statute to contract with virtual school providers for students who choose to attend virtual school full time, instead of on a class-by-class basis.

 “It’s to give the parent or student another option of receiving instruction. Instead of being in a room all day long with a teacher, most of the instruction would be on the computer,” Director of Middle and Secondary Education Frank Waller said.

 The Jackson County School Board approved a contract with K-12 Florida LLC at Tuesday’s board meeting, for virtual school instruction for grades kindergarten to eighth.

“Now we’re working out all the details of setting the school up, assigning it an identification number and working on technical aspect of it. It should take a couple of weeks, and once that’s done we’ll open it up for parents who ar interested in having their children enrolled,” Waller said.

 In the kindergarten through eighth grade program, the child must be in front of a computer for the entire school day, and spend at least 50 percent of contact time with a virtual school teacher.

From JCFloridan.com