You are here: Home / Archives for Virtual School

The public-school-as-buffet line debate begins in Georgia

March 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Three bills this session deal with access to after-school clubs, sports and programs for students outside of the schools. The bill that is advancing is SB 34, approved by the Senate last week. Sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, it allows students enrolled in other public schools — charters, magnets or virtual campuses — to play sports or join clubs at their local school if those programs are not offered at their own school.

I call this trend the public-school-buffet-line movement, whereby politicians treat public school offerings as a buffet line from which parents can pick the activities that appeal to them. Some public schools in other states permit home-schooled students to drop in for a math or advanced placement U.S. history course or attend field trips.

In arguing for his bill, Rogers maintained that charter and virtual school parents pay taxes, so they’re entitled to after-school chess clubs and soccer teams.

For the rest of the article, go to The public-school-as-buffet line debate begins in Georgia

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page, online high schools Tagged With: ,

Senate approves opening public school clubs, teams to non students

March 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As expected, the Senate voted 39 to 9 this afternoon to allow non students to join teams and clubs at their local public school.

Those non students must be enrolled in another public school, such as a magnet, charter or virtual school. If so, they would then be entitled to play sports or join clubs at their local school.

Senate Bill 34 grew out of a Gwinnett student’s experience when she transferred from her local public high school, Mill Creek, to Gwinnett’s math and science magnet. She was a lacrosse player and wanted to continue to play on her old school’s lacrosse team.

Under SB 34, she can.

The student’s champion was Gwinnett Sen. Rene Unterman who asked why the student has to decide between her advanced math and science offerings at her new magnet school and her lacrosse team at her old school. Why, said Unterman, should this student have to decide between science fairs and field trips and athletic aspirations?

For the rest of the article, go to Senate approves opening public school clubs, teams to non students

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page, news Tagged With:

Odyssey, virtual school to get separate charters July 1

February 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Odyssey was the first school to receive a charter from the Georgia Board of Education in 2001. The Georgia BOE action followed rejection of charter plans by the Coweta County Board of Education.

Odyssey opened in the fall of 2004 and was Coweta’s first stand-alone charter. When K12, a national purveyor of curriculum materials and an operator of virtual school programs in several states, began looking at options for opening a virtual school in Georgia, the state commission did not exist.

An agreement was reached with Odyssey to include the virtual school under its charter. Initially known as Georgia Virtual Academy, the name was later changed to Georgia Cyber Academy.

For the rest of the article, go to Odyssey, virtual school to get separate charters July 1

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page, news Tagged With: ,

Student fighting for chance to learn and play sports

February 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

ATLANTA — This was one paper Rachel Sackett looked forward to writing. One page, single-spaced. And it wasn’t even homework.

Sackett is a sophomore at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology so homework is something she knows well. She currently takes eight classes and her lowest average is a 95 in Spanish III. She takes three Advanced Placement classes and one on robotics.

“I love the programming aspect of everything,” said Sackett who estimates her average homework load is four hours a night.

But Sackett spent an hour and a half away from that load Wednesday, outlining, writing, editing and rewriting. On Thursday, she turned her paper in to a room full of Georgia State Senators. Out loud.

“I was shaking. I was super-excited coming down here,” the 15-year-old Sackett said of her trip to the state Capitol. “I was definitely nervous reading my little speech thing.”

Sackett took a half day off from school to sit before the Senate Education and Youth Committee as the face of proposed legislation to allow public school children who attend charter or virtual schools the chance to play Georgia High School Association athletics for their physical district’s high school.

For the rest of the article, go to Student fighting for chance to learn and play sports

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, Home Page, online high schools Tagged With: , ,

School officials hope Ga. will drop online seat time rules

September 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Virtual learning classes are still following the seat time required for high school courses,” said Gainesville City Schools Superintendent Merrianne Dyer. “Students have to log in and be active on the site for the whole time. As a charter system, we’ve moved away from seat time and spend time on what is most valuable and can give different times to different courses. Now we want to free up the virtual school.”

Local superintendents have asked the state for a waiver several times, but the request is always turned down, said Hall County Schools Superintendent Will Schofield.

“However, we’ve negotiated some middle ground and think it will be approved as long as we create a comprehensive end of course test for quality control,” he said. “This change would be big. We need to move toward blended instruction in the classroom and online.”

For the rest of the article, go to School officials hope Ga. will drop online seat time rules

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, online high schools Tagged With: ,

Cyber Academy freshmen OK’d

August 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Early last week, the school board upheld a decision by the State Charter School Commission denying a charter for the Georgia Cyber Academy and another virtual school applying to offer classes for high school students.

Since June, administrators had been trying to find a way to continue offering courses to 660 rising freshmen, and now can finally begin to look for teachers and send out textbooks, according to Renee Lord, who serves on the board of the virtual school and is president of the Georgia Families for Public Virtual Education.

For the rest of the article, go to Cyber Academy freshmen OK’d

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, online high schools Tagged With: , ,

Cyber school supporters say charter commission depriving students

August 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The Georgia Charter Schools Commission is facing another legal fight over how it divvies up funding.

Georgia Families for Public Virtual Education will be bringing its attorney to the Aug. 19 commission meeting to urge the board to reconsider a move the group says “illegally” sets insufficient funding for cyber schools, which teach via the Internet.

The commission has decided to fund cyber charters at a lower level than traditional charter campuses. Charters in buildings receive a combination of federal and state funds plus a controversial local matching share of tax dollars. Cyber charters receive everything but the local matching share. Georgia Cyber Academy, the state’s only virtual school, has about 6,000 students.

Cyber school supporters say they are not looking for full funding but virtual schools need substantially more money to educate students competitively.

For the rest of the article, go to Cyber school supporters say charter commission depriving students

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, online high schools Tagged With: , ,

Advocate calls for expanding cyber academy

July 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The commission did vote earlier this month to allow two new virtual schools to begin enrolling high school students this fall, but last week, both decided to postpone their opening after determining the funding they received was inadequate, Peevy said.

“Both are essentially saying, ‘We don’t think we can do it for that amount,’ so that is in essence, where we are,” Peevy said.

The Georgia Cyber Academy can amend its current charter to allay those governance concerns and, if the state board approves an amended petition in August, the school would become the first and only virtual school offering high school classes, Lord said.

“I’m extremely optimistic for our rising ninth-graders that they will have a good option to continue their success in the fall,” she said.

More virtual-school advocates will get a chance to expand or establish schools during the 2011-12 school year if they submit charter petitions by Aug. 1, Peevy said.

“We’ll be looking for a whole slate of new schools,” Peevy said. “I think a piece that is missing in the virtual school landscape in Georgia is the high school component, and I think that is a valuable component to get in place so students who do best in that environment can continue their education in that kind of environment,” he said. “I think it’s key that we find a way to have that offering available to them.”

For the rest of the article, go to Advocate calls for expanding cyber academy

Filed Under: bestonlinehighschools.com, online high schools Tagged With: ,
Newer Posts »