Virtual Academy out to hit higher student cap

Arkansas’ 10-year-old, publicly funded, online homeschool program for children in kindergarten through eighth grades is poised to grow to six times its current 500-pupil enrollment, making it the state’s largest independently run charter school.

Leaders of the ArkansasVirtual Academy are working this summer with prospective students and faculty candidates for the coming 2013-14 school year after Arkansas lawmakers in April increased the school’s enrollment cap to 3,000 and freed the school to expand into the high school grades.

Scott Sides, head of the school that is based in NorthLittle Rock but serves students and families statewide, said Friday that the school has received about 1,300 applications to date. He is projecting an enrollment of at least 1,500 pupils in kindergarten through eighth grades starting this fall, and possibly as many as 2,000.

That projected enrollment is comparable to the e-STEMPublic Charter Schools system in downtown Little Rock, which had a total enrollment of 1,485 last school year and has been the largest of the public, independently run charter school systems in the state.

The enrollment cap for what the Virtual Academy leaders call “a radically different education delivery”system was increased despite objections from Arkansas Department of Education staff members who wanted all charter schools to be treated the same - with amendments to the charter agreements subject to approval by the state Board of Education or the state Department of Education, not legislators.

The state Board of Education had turned down the Virtual Academy’s earlier request to expand.

“This is not in any way delivering education in a traditional mode,” John Riggs IV of Little Rock, vice chairman of the board of directors for the Arkansas Virtual Academy, said about the academy’s program.

The school provides teachers, online lessons, textbooks, workbooks, software, tests, art supplies, science materials and field trip opportunities for students. A computer and Internet access also are provided if they are not already available to a student.

The school receives the standard aid per student that all public schools receive from the state - $6,237 per student this year. Also, the students are required to take the state-mandated exams that other public school students must take.

The Virtual Academy education program - including the approximately 100 pounds of supplies delivered to each student’s home every school year - is managed by K12, a for-profit, Virginia-based company.

K12 has contracts to manage online and blended online and traditional school programs in 32 states and the District of Columbia in partnership with school districts and nonprofit charter boards, Jeff Kwitowski, senior vice president for corporate communications, said in an e-mail. The company is the largest provider of online education programs in the nation, he said.

Each Arkansas Virtual Academy student is aided by an on-site “learning coach,” who is usually a parent or a grandparent, but can be anyone 18 and older who is committed to conferring with teachers and otherwise helping the student who has to be logged into the state-financed instructional program for 30 hours a week.

Riggs, a former Little Rock School Board member and a former state senator, said he was drawn to the academy by the benefits that technology can provide.

“Every child can have an individual education plan,” he said. “Education is tailored to the child rather than the child having to be shoehorned into the educational system. That’s all because of the technology.”

Academy leaders were motivated to expand the school for different reasons, including a waiting list of 600 or more pupils who had little hope of being admitted otherwise, Riggs said.

“Our parents were telling us that we needed more spots,” he said.

By the time siblings of current students in the school were admitted to the school’s rolls, as is permitted by state law, there were only 22 open seats available to be filled in a lottery drawing. The lottery is used only when there are more student applicants for acharter school than there are available openings.

Additionally, school leaders were eager to increase the school size to be able to offer students and their families an online high school program that would complement the elementary- and middle-school academy, Riggs said. There is no other state-sanctioned virtual high school in Arkansas.

The Virtual Academy won’t offer any high school grades in 2013-14 but plans for at least a ninth grade and possibly a ninth and 10th grade in the 2014-15 school year, Riggs said.

The increase in the kindergarten-through-eighth-grade enrollment will require more teaching staff members, said Sides, who is a former Lonoke School District teacher and a past administrator at Episcopal Collegiate School in Little Rock. He anticipates hiring 18 general education teachers and three special-education teachers to augment what hasbeen a state certified teaching staff of 13.

Sides and members of his staff have been conducting informational meetings with parents and students in recent weeks.

In July, academy leaders will begin training programs for the parents or other learning coaches for the new students. Those sessions are about 1 ½ hours long and are designed to explain to the learning coaches what will be required of them by the school.

More information about the school program and enrollment is available by calling the K12 toll-free number (866) 339-4951, or by viewing the Virtual Academy website, www.k12.com/arva.

The Arkansas Virtual Academy started as a pilot project in January 2003 with a multimillion-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The state Education Board later that year attempted to make the school a charter school with no enrollment cap, but lawmakers blocked that move, overriding a gubernatorial veto to do so. The school continued to operate with funding from grants.

In April 2007, the state board approved the virtual school as an open-enrollment charter school with a 500-student cap.

In 2011, and again in 2012, the state Education Board turned down requests to raise the enrollment cap to 1,500. The board did approve a three-year renewal of the charter last year, although the school had asked for a fiveyear renewal.

Earlier this year, led by Sen. Johnny Key, R-Mountain Home, lawmakers approved special language in what became Act 233 of 2013 that enables the school’s enrollment to grow to 3,000 in grades kindergarten through 12.

Legislators raised the cap despite state Education Board concerns and over the objections of Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell.

The Education Board had raised concerns about the amount of fees paid to theK12 company and whether the virtual school’s increased enrollment would siphon money from traditional school districts. Kimbrell argued that the legislative action defied the Education Department’s efforts to treat each charter school the same.

On Friday, Kimbrell said the state agency “will maintain proper oversight” of the charter school while continuing to work to improve traditional public schools.

“My goal is to lead public education to higher levels of academic achievement whatever delivery system is in place,” he said in a prepared statement, and added, “charter schools provide options for many students in our state, and parents should be afforded that choice.”

The special language approved by lawmakers requires that the students who fill the 2,500 new slots be those who were enrolled in public schools last school year. Thestate aid will follow those students from their previous schools to the virtual school. That should prevent an increase in education costs to the state, lawmakers said.

Riggs said Friday that lawmakers were familiar with the school’s program and understood what the virtual school was attempting to do when they approved the 3,000-student enrollment cap.

“We can demonstrate that our kids are progressing. There is value in educating kids this way,” Riggs said about using specialized teachers and “world class” curricula to better tailor an education program to students in places where resources are scant.

“This is going to change education. Will it change next week? No,” Riggs said. “Will it change it next year? Probably not. But in five years, we won’t have this discussion. Something will have happened by then. That’s just a hop, skip away.”

Arkansas, Pages 15 on 06/09/2013

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