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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday June 17 2015, @12:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the telecommuting-isn't-just-for-adults-anymore dept.

For several years, public school students in Virginia who do not have particular courses (e.g. Advanced Placement or Honors courses) offered in their brick-and-mortar classrooms have had online courses available to them.

The Virginia Department of Education announces

The [...] Virtual Virginia program will pilot a full-time, online high school for the 2015-2016 school year. The pilot--available to as many as 100 students on a first-come, first-served basis--will offer all required core academic courses and electives necessary to earn a Standard or Advanced Studies diploma.

"We are excited to offer this opportunity to high school students, especially those with the potential for thriving in a non-traditional instructional setting", Superintendent of Public Instruction Steven R. Staples said. "This expansion of the nationally recognized Virtual Virginia program provides more choice and flexibility to students seeking a high school diploma."

Students in the full-time pilot will be enrolled in their local public school but will receive instruction through Virtual Virginia. As with all Virtual Virginia courses, instruction will be provided by teachers with Virginia certification. Local schools will ensure that students in the pilot have access to technology, textbooks, special services and other necessary materials at no cost.

[...] Courses are delivered through Virtual Virginia's secure, web-based environment, and, like traditional classroom instruction, will include readings, discussion forums, written assignments, media, student presentations and projects, case studies, simulations, lab assignments, models, and opportunities for student collaboration.

The coverage by the Center for American Progress notes

Twenty-six states offer virtual or distance schooling on some level but few--Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming--have full-time programs statewide, according to a 2014 report(PDF) from the Evergreen Education Group.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday June 17 2015, @01:50PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 17 2015, @01:50PM (#197252)

    Locally they also worked bottom up, for alternative high school, special ed, and various protective custody aka juvie hall. Not just top down for AP. In fact they started bottom up more than a decade ago.

    So its no surprise that eventually simultaneously going top down for advanced classes and bottom up for special ed classes that eventually you'll have the whole system online from top to bottom. The future not being very well distributed where I live they've had this for years, and there's likely poor states that will never have this, ever.

    There have been absolute shit storms over the school sports issue. If you simplistically allow anyone physically in the district including home schoolers and online students to join any district team, then you end up with a lot of sport shopping where kids will play for a team on the other high school etc. Massive butt hurt over "my kid attends this school but got cut from the team because a better home school kid got his place" and that flys directly in the face of participation trophy culture. They also get all wound up about things like after school clubs, even if the marginal cost of another kid is $0 they'll whine and complain about total cost / number of students so suddenly they're trying to get some home school kid in the minecraft club to "pay his share" of the new football field and the staff advisers salary.

    In the long run some kind of de-corporatization of the school model is likely. School will be classrooms and learning and if you want to play baseball you can play in the parks and rec muni league or little league. Believe it or not, in my home town my kids can play baseball as part of gym class, as part of after school district wide system, as part of traditional little league inc, or as part of the parks and rec dept recreational leagues. There is little point in the school being involved in sports anymore, not in 2015. Might have made sense on the extreme western frontier in 1870 to turn the school into a micro-encapsulated-civilization, but its not 1870 anymore.

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  • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:32PM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:32PM (#197321) Journal

    Despite multiple studies showing it is better for teen brains to start school later than the shadow of dawn, it doesn't happen in large part because of school sports. Who knew sports were more important than education?

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:55PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:55PM (#197344)

      In all honesty I stayed up late Fing around with TRS80 computers and stuff without doing any formal sport, so I was as sleepy for the first 2-3 classes as the jocks.

      Some poor bastard has to take physics first hour, but online everyone can simultaneously do the easy stuff for the first hour and hard stuff once they wake up, which is interesting and probably highly productive.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @09:37PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @09:37PM (#197550)

        > In all honesty I stayed up late Fing around with TRS80 computers and stuff without doing any formal sport, so I was as sleepy for the first 2-3 classes as the jocks.

        That's not what the gug meant. It isn't that sports keep people up late, it is that school starts early so that there is enough afternoon time available for sports before the kids have to be home for dinner.