KSDK coverage of St. Louis Public Schools virtual school.

KSDK Channel 5, St. Louis recently reported on the new St. Louis Public Schools virtual school. There is no charge to St. Louis Public Schools students. Jo Anne Reese of the district, commented during the broadcast that students outside the St. Louis Public School district are invited to enroll, however, they will be required to pay tuition. Click below to view the news story at the KSDK site.http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=127641

Additional seats in the statewide MoVIP program are open for enrollment on a “first come, first serve” basis due to a few withdrawals.

MoVIP running despite bumps - Enrollment reopens for online school.

Published Friday, August 31, 2007

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Missouri’s new virtual school is up and running for the first time this month, despite bumps along the way, including hundreds of students who signed up to attend but didn’t follow through.

Missouri’s virtual instruction program, known as MoVIP, allows elementary and high school students around the state to take classes online using the Internet.

School officials said yesterday they have reopened enrollment because the program now has spots to accommodate more students. There are 1,800 students currently taking part, with room for as many as 400 more this school year...

Click below for complete article...http://www.columbiatribune.com/2007/Aug/20070831News010.asp
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Florida leads growth in virtual schooling

Still the oldest and largest K-12 virtual school, FLVS is a model for online instruction.

The oldest and largest virtual school in the country, Florida Virtual School is still growing. Although some have raised questions about funding and the amount of social interaction that students receive, ed-tech advocates say the potential of FLVS, and other virtual schools, is unlimited, and can help struggling students become 21st century learners.

August 17, 2007—As a seventh-grader, Kelsey-Anne Hizer was getting mostly Ds and Fs and thought teachers at her Ocala, Fla., middle school weren't giving her the help she needed. She was ready to give up. Full Story

But after switching schools for eighth grade, Kelsey-Anne is receiving more individual attention, making As and Bs, and is enthusiastic about learning--even though she has never been in the same room as her teachers.

Kelsey-Anne transferred to the Orlando-based Florida Virtual School (FLVS), one of the nation's oldest and largest online schools. At least 2,700 full-time and up to 52,000 part-time students in grades six through 12 get lessons over the internet from teachers scattered across the state and nation. The students, from Florida and 35 other states, communicate with their teachers and each other through chat rooms, eMail, telephone, and instant messaging. (Click below for full story)

Florida leads growth in virtual schooling

SLPS LAUNCHES VIRTUAL LEARNING

St. Louis Public Schools will launch an e-Learning initiative this fall for grades K-3 and 9-12. The district has partnered with two world-class organizations, K12 Inc. and Kaplan Virtual Education. We are pleased to offer our families another high quality public school option.

St. Louis Public Schools’ K-12 Virtual Schools will begin in the 2007-2008 school year. This year, elementary courses will be offered from grades K-3 and 9-12. The district will be expanding to K-8 in the 2008-2009 school year. The implementation of SLPS Virtual Schools is a part of the pioneering effort in St. Louis Public Schools to address the needs of all children anytime, anywhere, any place and any pace.

Please click on this link for more information: http://www.slps.org/virtual_school/index.htm

ONLINE EDUCATION: Texas Virtual School on the way to reality

July 8, 2007, 3:46PM

Texas has a new school that could allow students at even the smallest campuses to study rarely offered subjects, such as Chinese and advanced physics, the Houston Chronicle reports. Although it will have to overcome a lack of funding, the new statewide virtual school--signed into law last month--is expected eventually to serve as a clearinghouse for all online courses offered by local school districts… By expanding course options for more students, state network seen as 'equalizer'

By JENNIFER RADCLIFFECopyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
ESOURCES
Texas' Senate Bill 1788
HISD's virtual school program
Florida's virtual school program

-->Texas has a new school that could allow students at even the smallest campuses to study rarely offered subjects such as Chinese and advanced physics.

The "virtual school" could enable teens with full-time jobs to work toward their diplomas online at midnight if necessary. And children at struggling urban high schools with limited course options could log onto Advanced Placement classes offered at affluent suburban campuses.
"There's all kinds of applications. We envision lots of different models," said Jim Schul, the Harris County Department of Education's chief information officer in technology.

Although it will have to overcome a lack of funding, the statewide network — signed into law last month — is expected eventually to serve as a clearinghouse for all online courses offered by local school districts. Most of the details still need to be ironed out, but Houston students theoretically could sign up for classes offered by teachers in Dallas.

"Kids' schedules are getting so crazy," Schul said. "Families' schedules are getting so crazy. They need options."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4950707.html

Missouri Virtual High School Partners with Kaplan, eCollege

by Michelle Rutledge
http://www.thejournal.com/articles/20734
Missouri Virtual Education program, in its plans to develop a virtual high school for fall 2007, has selected Kaplan to provide its online high school curriculum. Kaplan will partner with eCollege to provide a platform and software developer BocaVox to "provide course content, curriculum development, online instruction and administration tools," according to Kaplan. Northwest Missouri State University Center of Information Technology will serve as project manager.
"This partnership will give our small school districts in Missouri access to a larger range of courses, especially advanced courses," said Curt Fuchs, Missouri Department of Secondary Education's virtual education director. "For home schooled students, dropouts, home bound, or even credit recovery, Kaplan Virtual Education along with Northwest Missouri State University will be providing another option that Missouri students have not had before."
The online high school plans to offer opportunities for full-time and part-time students who need advance courses, make-up credit and those who have scheduling conflicts. According to Kaplan, some of the courses that will be offered include physics, algebra and biology as well as advance placement courses in calculus, literature and U.S. History.
Some 700,000 K-12 students were enrolled in online courses in the 2005/2006 school year, according to research from the Sloan Consortium.
Read More:
Missouri Virtual School program
Kaplan
eCollege

Virtual school enrollment ends today

Tuesday, May 29, 2007By Mark Bliss ~ Southeast Missourian
Students may still have a chance to sign up for Missouri's new virtual school after the initial enrollment period ends at 8 a.m. today, the program's state director said.
About 1,900 elementary and high school students had enrolled in the state's new online classes as of late last week, said Dr. Curt Fuchs, director of the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program or MoVIP.
The three-week online application process began May 7, but many Missourians are just now learning of the new program. "I have people calling just about every hour," Fuchs said from his Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education office in Jefferson City.
"We could accommodate about 4,000 students this first year," Fuchs said. Those students would be able to take online classes free of charge.
That's twice as many as originally anticipated, he said. The Missouri Legislature doubled the funding for the program, providing $5.2 million to fund the online classes, Fuchs said.
Initially state education officials thought that they might have more students apply than slots available. In that case, the state envisioned filling the seats through a lottery system.
But Fuchs said it appears a lottery won't be necessary. "It looks like everybody who registers probably will get a state-funded seat," he said. "I am really thrilled I am not going to have to turn anybody away."
The DESE expects the online school will offer some 14,000 semester-long classes starting this fall.
Through late last week, students had signed up for 7,000 classes. In Southeast Missouri, students have signed up for nearly 500 online classes so far, Fuchs said.
No classes are being offered for middle-school students in the coming school year. But Fuchs said the plan is to add middle-school courses in the second year of the online school.
The state has hired two vendors, Northwest Missouri State University of Maryville and Connections Academy of Baltimore, to manage and provide the curriculum, teachers and instructional materials needed to offer the virtual classes.
Northwest Missouri State is handling the online classes for high school students. Connections Academy, a private firm, is in charge of the elementary school classes.
High school courses account for about 60 percent of the online enrollment, Fuchs said.
"I am not surprised by that," he said.
Classes for elementary students require a greater commitment of time from parents, he said. "At the elementary level, that parent is a facilitator," Fuchs said.
To make it work with children of elementary-school age, parents have to be available to work with their children online during the day, he said.
"You really, at the elementary level, can't be a working parent," Fuchs said.
Parents have to sign an agreement for their children to enroll in elementary classes, he said.
Northwest Missouri State will hire teachers from all around the state to teach the online high school courses.
Connections Academy plans to set up an office in Jefferson City and bring in teachers from the Central Missouri area to teach the elementary school classes.
One teacher will be allowed to teach up to 120 students in a single course, Fuchs said.
Some 700 educators applied for the online teaching positions. Most of the teachers will teach full time in the virtual school, Fuchs said. For the online high school classes, part-time teachers will be hired to complement the full-time staff, he said.
The virtual school has drawn a lot of interest from residents of rural Missouri.
Fuchs said he expects a lot of Missouri's home-schooled students will be full-time online students. That would mean taking six courses over the course of a semester, he said.
Fuchs said many homebound students, who are unable to attend schools for medical reasons, are signing up for the virtual classes.
"This is just a perfect solution for them," he said.

First Round Enrollment in Virtual School Closes

Tuesday, May 29, 2007, 10:01 PM
By Bob Priddy
A new kind of school begins holding sessions in mid-August. The first phase of enrollment has just ended.
About 17-hundred students are the first enrollees in Missouri's virtual school program. Education department officials are pleased they have not had to turn any children away from the program and, in fact, might allow about 700 more to sign up on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Program director Kurt Fuchs says about 25 percent of the students are full-time, mostly home-school students. The rest are going to be part-time students. He says some students will take courses through the virtual school system to get around schedule conflicts at school. Others want to accelerate their learning or take courses not available in their own schools.
He says some parents are willing to pay tuition for their children to get into the program. Fuchs says he expects to start enrolling children in the tuition program late next month.
Students in the program will have access to course material 24 hours a day. Each student will have a teacher and teacher assistant working with them.
Twelve counties still have no students signed up for the virtual school program.

South Carolina Creates Virtual School Program

Charleston.net
5/22/2007

Home-schoolers and students attending public, private or charter schools can take online classes after Gov. Mark Sanford on Thursday signed a new law creating the South Carolina Virtual School Program.

The law, which will be administered by the state Department of Education, will allow students a chance to enroll in online courses that might not otherwise be available to them."It's an incredibly important step forward because, among other things, it represents another choice in education," said Sanford, who was joined in the Statehouse via the Internet by students at the Governor's School for Science and Mathematics in Hartsville.

Virtual schools are modeled after regular classroom courses, but students communicate with teachers online and e-mail their homework and other assignments. The law builds on a pilot program first offered last May with summer courses such as geometry and Web design available to students in 11 school districts.

The law will allow students to earn credits in Advanced Placement, remedial and specialty classes online. It will also ease scheduling conflicts, provide individualized instruction and help students meet graduation requirements.

Full Story

South Dakota Launches Virtual High School

South Dakota has launched a Virtual High School
with the goal of providing greater choice, flexibility
and quality for students statewide.


Welcome to South Dakota's Virtual High School
Choice. Flexibility. Quality. That's what the South Dakota Virtual High School offers: a variety of courses that students can take on their own time, all taught by qualified professionals and aligned to the state's content standards.
Because the South Dakota Department of Education approves all courses, students can be assured that course offerings meet the state's high academic standards.
Any high school student in South Dakota is eligible to take courses via the South Dakota Virtual High School. But students must register through their home school district.
Get started on virtual classes today!
http://www.sdvhs.k12.sd.us/

Virtual High School to "Open" in August

By Paul Hampel
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
02/24/2007

Missouri will start a virtual school on the Internet in August that officials say will offer students in public and private schools more individualized, interactive and self-paced instruction.

Students with home Internet access will have the chance to select from about 30 courses in the first year and do school work at any time of the day or night.

Curt Fuchs, Missouri's virtual school director, explained the program to south St. Louis County school superintendents at a lunch Friday at Lindbergh School District headquarters.

"This is another tool that we can offer kids so that they can be successful and graduate from high school," Fuchs, 56, said after the luncheon.

He said the program would be especially helpful for ambitious students seeking advanced courses; children who want another crack at a course they failed; and home-schoolers, particularly sick children.

Because of funding restrictions, the program will be open only to students in grades K-5 and 9-12 in the 2007-08 school year. "We're going to take it slowly initially because I'm it — I'm the program," he said.

Missouri will be the 25th state with a cyberschool program.

Fuchs said a lottery will choose students in the first year because demand is expected to be high. Applications will be accepted in May.

Originally expected to accommodate 500 students in its first year, the program got a boost last week when Gov. Matt Blunt proposed doubling spending in the first year, to $5.2 million. Fuchs said that would cover about 1,000 students.

The state expects to hire about 100 teachers in the first year. Fuchs said teachers will be hired on a contract basis and will work from home; he said they will not get retirement or other benefits.

After the initial lottery, the program will be open to any students who pay, or have districts that will pay, a $300 fee per semester class.

Students would take routine tests at home, Fuchs said.

When asked how officials could prevent cheating on at-home tests, Fuchs said, "Integrity does become an issue."

He said time limits might be used "so kids can't spend time looking answers up on Google."

Fuchs said that all students who participate, whether from public or private schools, must take the annual Missouri Assessment Program test at a supervised site.

Lindbergh Superintendent James A. Sandfort hailed the program. "It's an incredible opportunity for students, it's another choice for students, and it offers another venue for children to acquire education," he said.

Whether the program would allow flexible scheduling — for instance, so that a Lindbergh student could leave school early to take an online class at home — Sandfort said, "That's to be determined."

Online Education Slow to Load

Parents upset that new Internet school won't initially serve middle grades.

Kelly Wiese
The Associated Press

Jefferson City — Missouri, for the first time this fall, will offer hundreds of students a chance to take online courses for free throughout the state. But many parents are upset because middle-school students will be left out for now.

A state law required the education department to create a "virtual school" for kindergarten through high school students.

But the agency decided to start in stages, expecting more limited funding, so its bid request for the school's initial year was limited to areas where it expected the highest interest. Classes will be offered to kindergarten through fifth grade and to high school students in the coming school year, but a sixth through eighth grade program won't be available until the following year.

The legislature's budget process is under way. But the plan awaiting a House vote would provide $5.2 million for the virtual school in the first year — double the governor's original budget recommendation.

But education officials say that even with more money, it's too late to add middle-school grades.
That's especially frustrating to parents of middle-school students who championed the program at the Capitol.

Garry Jones, of Kansas City, has a 12-year-old daughter who is home-schooled by her parents because of her asthma and allergies. She will be in seventh grade next year, falling into the gap in the virtual education program. He said his family and many others with middle-school students traveled to Jefferson City to advocate for the bill and now aren't reaping its benefits.

"The bill was K through 12. Never was it said we would not have certain grades," said Jones, who is also the chairman of Missourians for Online Education.

Curt Fuchs, virtual education director for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said the bid process to select contractors that will offer the curriculum is lengthy and couldn't be redone in time for August.

Fuchs said he's evaluating whether there's a way to cover all grades once the winning contractors are selected, which should occur in late April.

"We haven't come up with a good solution yet," he said.

Fuchs said the state education agency is receiving 30 to 40 calls a day from people interested in the virtual school, and elected officials asked if the department could handle more students in the first year.

So the plan is to instead enroll the equivalent of 1,000 full-time students, rather than 500, in elementary and high school. In reality, many more actual students probably will take part, as some may only want one or two courses.

Jones said he told Fuchs, "The people who got you your job are not even given the opportunity to participate in the new program."

Education officials and legislators say they understand the frustration, but want to move slowly in getting the program running and work out the kinks. They pledge courses will be offered to all grade levels in the second year.

"It is still a pilot project at the end of the day," said Rep. Brian Baker, R-Belton, who has pushed to increase the budget for the coming year. "We have to take one step at a time."

Baker said he's advocating doubling the budget even knowing those three grade levels won't be available for the coming school year, reasoning that there's enough demand for the online courses and state-certified teachers that the slots will be easily filled.

Fuchs said he envisions a program that can help a student who flunked a class get caught up, or allow another to get a required course out of the way during the summer, freeing up hours during the school day for other interests. Plus, it could be just the answer for a small rural school with two students wanting to take trigonometry and no appropriate teacher.

Some families say that's part of the problem — education officials aren't focused on those who want to use the virtual school as a full-time program.

"We still don't understand completely why he chose to leave those grades out," Jones said. "I know what we've been told, but I still don't understand it."

Universities Register for Virtual Future

By Stefanie Olsen Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: February 7, 2007, 9:15 AM PST

SAN FRANCISCO--If you want to know what higher education will look like in a few years, you might ask Charles Reed, chancellor of the largest four-year university system in the United States.
As head of the California State University system--with 23 campuses, 46,000 employees and more than 400,000 students--Reed says he's worried about classroom space in the future because of, among other reasons, expanding enrollment.
Consequently, Reed said he envisions students becoming more like telecommuters. They might meet with faculty and peers one day a week on campus, and then use simulations, virtual worlds and downloaded information the rest of the week to complete coursework.
"It's not an either-or thing. We need the 'high touch,' but we need the high tech at the same time," Reed said Tuesday at Sun Microsystem's Worldwide Education and Research Conference here.
The three-day conference kicked off Tuesday to a packed hotel ballroom of roughly 400 attendees hailing from universities around the world. Sun devoted a large part of the day to selling educators on its open-source technology for classroom computing. Sun Chairman Scott McNealy himself promoted a range of Sun efforts, including Project Blackbox, which creates data centers packaged in stackable shipping containers, and Curriki.org, which focuses on creating free curriculum in the mold of Wikipedia. (Click below for complete article.)

http://news.com.com/Universities+register+for+virtual+future/2100-1032_3-6157088.html?tag=html.alert

Online Classes Go Mainstream

Online Classes Go Mainstream
For class selection, ease of scheduling and many other reasons, the shift to Web is strong, but some see problems.
By Seema Mehta, Times Staff Writer February 4, 2007

After Ben Hathaway's father was called to active duty in the Army National Guard, the 15-year-old had to help his family tend the 130 head of cattle on their 345-acre farm in Leoma, Tenn. Traditional school burned through too many daylight hours, so Hathaway started taking online classes through Lutheran High School of Orange County, some 1,750 miles away."Mom was having trouble running the farm by herself," Hathaway, who is taking algebra and world history online, said in a phone interview. "You can schedule everything on your own time. You don't have to sit for six hours a day — you can do some work, go eat, play a little on the computer and come back later and do it."Hathaway, who hopes to be a novelist, is among 1 million kindergarten through high school student enrollments in virtual schooling across the nation, according to the North American Council for Online Learning, a nonprofit organization for administrators, teachers and others involved in online schooling.Enrollment, counted as the total number of seats in all online classes, not the number of students, has grown more than 20 times in seven years, and the group expects the numbers to continue to jump 30% annually.To deal with the growth, the University of California is launching an extensive effort to make sure applicants' online high school courses are on par with traditional classroom instruction.Nearly half the states offer public school classes online, and last year Michigan became the first in the nation to require students to take an online course to graduate from high school. In California, a state senator introduced a bill last week to allow public high school students to take online classes without depriving schools of the state funding they receive for attendance.Online learning "is going to reinvent high school in the United States," said Ken Ellwein, executive director of Lutheran High School of Orange County, which created its online school last year."To keep technology away from kids while they're going to school, when they have it in every other part of their lives — it just doesn't make sense."But other educators urged caution, noting that teacher-student interaction is irreplaceable. "In the classroom, I can see from a child's eyes or body language, 'Boy, I better slow down and go back over this,' " said Gerry Wheeler, a former physics teacher who is executive director of the National Science Teachers Assn. in Arlington, Va. The U.S. Department of Education plans to release a study about the prevalence of online schooling later this year. But one survey the department completed nearly five years ago found that 36% of school districts in the nation had students enrolled in virtual school, mostly high school students. "We've certainly seen an increase," said Tim Magner, director of the department's Office of Educational Technology. "It's growing fast."He said students often enroll in online classes to take Advanced Placement or other specialty courses not available in their local schools. Making up a failed class or adding courses that would not otherwise fit in a student's schedule are other top reasons, he said. Online schools are also popular with home-schooled children, with students who are devoting large blocks of time to such activities as ballet, acting or tennis, as well as students who don't enjoy a traditional school atmosphere or who need to work."It's not a matter of intellect or aptitude. The most important factor would be the [student's] desire," said Patty Young, director of Orange Lutheran Online. "Students today really want a customized education. Why should school be confined to an old-style box with a daily schedule?" Paul Riscalla, 17, a senior at Orange Lutheran who lives in Orange, splits his time between online classes and the traditional school so he can work 40 hours a week at two jobs and play drums in a rock band."It was a way for me to have more time outside school, because I have a lot of stuff going on," he said.Other parts of the nation have a head start on virtual schooling, with 24 states running online schools. Nearly 30,000 students take classes at Florida Virtual School, which has a $43-million annual budget and, at nearly a decade old, is the nation's oldest and largest statewide online public school."Many states are realizing the world is moving in this direction, and we need to prepare kids to be able to work and exist in this type of environment," said Julie Young, co-founder of the Florida school.In California, online schools are run through private schools such as Orange Lutheran, as well as public schools, universities and businesses.

Missouri readies virtual school for classes in August

No desks. No cafeteria. No recess. No principal.

But the state of Missouri's new virtual school will have online classes for elementary and high school students starting in August.

http://www.semissourian.com/story/1183290.html