Virtual School Reality

Editor's Notes

• #5: Charters and Homeschooling especially are on the rise in Florida. To give you some idea, this past August, 3 charter school applied to enter Seminole County Schools. Orange Co (Orlando) got 30. Dade County got 92 – and 28 of those were virtual schools. And we believe we are only at the beginning of what is to come.
• #6: A charter school opened in a neighborhood, and has about 650 students. Last year, in that same neighborhood, we had to close an elementary school. It was under-enrolled by about 500 students. We lost that competition.As you look to the future of your competition,Virtual school will represent a cornerstone in your efforts to compete and I hope to make that clear today.
• #7: There are a lot of myths that cause districts to discard the idea of starting a virtual school and I’m going to discuss some of them today.
• #8: When I Googled homeschooling in Illinois, the first three hits were virtual schools, and none of them were your state program. There are large companies that are – so far quietly – coming into your state and attracting students into their virtual programs. They won’t stay quiet. They have aggressive marketing campaigns, most of which you won’t see – they market to kids on facebook and other social networking sites. Many of them are well-connected in government, so you may start to see legislation working in their favor. This is one of the first reasons why YOU should get involved and work with your legislators to ensure the laws work in YOUR favor.
• #9: Who here is proud of their brick and mortar schools? Why are you proud – how do you ensure that pride? Are all brick and mortar schools across America equally good?Who knows your students better? You or some nationwide company?This is why you need to get out in front of this. Otherwise others will dictate to you the kind of education your students can get online.We have an excellent state virtual school – so I franchise with it. Franchising gives me an established tested curriculum, but all the local control that I need.Virtual School is not a “lesser education”Virtual school is challenging and requires discipline and monitoring at homeVirtual school students spend 6 hours per day on average working on school work
• #10: Let me share with you some of our financial story:We are completing our 3rd year – we have turned a profit for the district each year. We started very very small – just grades 6 – 12 and just 17 courses.In grades 6 – 12 this year we had over 250 full time virtual students, over half from home school returning to full time public virtual school. 125 new students being funded returned $625,000.00 to the district. Many of the balance WOULD have gone to home school, but remained public because of virtual. I won’t even count those for now. In addition, we served about 1500 additional course enrollments just to home school students. That’s another $625,000.00 returned to the district. So – just this year, and just in grades 6 – 12, and just in new revenue we would not have realized, our district regained $1,250.000.00. Add to this – private school and serving our own public school students that would have selected a state virtual course, K-5, and beyond the money, the BENEFITS it provides to our students…You can’t afford NOT to open a virtual school.
• #11: Class size, falling enrollments, loss of teachers
• #12: Class size, falling enrollments, loss of teachers
• #13: For every student, there is a story.We see ourselves as problem solvers – we don’t like to say no.
• #16: Again – this is why YOU want to run your school. Keep your class loads small enough for the support that creates quality.And by the way – just how sure were YOU about who was doing homework and projects when you taught? Ever catch a kid cheating on a test? How many didn’t you catch?
• #17: When I googled homeschooling in Illinois, the first three hits were VS and none were your state school.
• #20: First year, a closet in the back of a computer lab at the district office.Graduated to a room and use of the labNow graduating to a new location with multiple roomsLegitimizing the school through hard work, now a cornerstone of district wide efforts
• #24: Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that this can happen after a full time job or blended with b/m8 – 8
• #27: These changing realities begin with virtual, but head right into b/m school.If I play videoSay YES to innovationSay YES to changeSay YES to virtual
• #28: This so sums up the impact virtual school has – and you can either be part of the new model, or you can be part of the obsolete model.