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.