MERRILL — Leaders of Merrill Area Public Schools have begun planning for major changes for the 2012-13 school year.
Those changes include the transition of Pine River Elementary School to become the Head Start Early Childhood center, and the opening of two charter schools, Bridges Virtual Academy and Maple Grove Charter School.
For the rest of the article, go to Merrill schools gear up for big changes
MISHICOT — Mishicot educators Thomas Ellenbecker and Stacie Cihlar believe the school district’s newly approved virtual school will benefit existing Mishicot students, home-schooled students and the district.
The School Board recently approved the Mishicot Online Virtual Education (MOVE) program for kindergarten through 12th grade, and it will go into effect at the beginning of the 2012-13 academic year.
Current students could benefit from the flexibility of being able to take courses online, said Cihlar, the district’s integration coach. She helps teachers integrate technology into the curriculum.
For the rest of the article, go to Moving forward: Mishicot Online Virtual Education program wins School Board approval
We have also been able to embark on a path to 1 to 1 computing at our high school. To complement this change, we created a team of staff members to enhance the use of technology with the staff and the students.
This year, we are offering our virtual school option to give students a different type of education right here at home. We are also very excited to be partnering with Mercury Marine to offer our STEM Academy. This is a charter school that will focus on mathematics and science along with all the other courses of study, which any third through fifth-grade student can apply to attend. Our student achievement should be soaring due to the added collaboration time to the school day. This allows every staff member to be involved in the collaboration meetings, rather than a few. These are just a few of the great things we have going on in the Fond du Lac School District that make us better than last year.
For the rest of the article, go to Is the school district better off than it was a year ago? Explain.
The district had 913 students leave and 213 students enter this school year, a net loss of 700 students. That’s up from a net loss of 592 students last year and 82 students five years ago.
A 2009 survey of families opting to leave the district found that more than 60 percent mentioned “environmental issues” related to safety, drugs, alcohol and bullying in the schools. About 42 percent said the resident school was closer to home, work or daycare and 18 percent made reference to the district’s limited curricular offerings. About 15 percent said their children transferred to a virtual school.
Nerad said the district has made changes to respond to those concerns, such as improved school security, more talented-and-gifted programming, and the expansion of dual language immersion classrooms.
For the rest of the article, go to More time for open enrollment
Appleton schools Supt. Lee Allinger said many new students come from across the state, drawn by virtual schools seen as an alternative to home schooling. The Wisconsin Connections Academy received nearly 900 applications last year, Allinger estimated, and should see a large increase this year with the recent addition of grades nine through 12 to the virtual school.
Appleton’s charter schools also attract students to the district. Appleton has 15 charter schools, second only to Milwaukee.
Bouwer Hansen said she enrolled her children in Appleton’s Fox River Academy because the school is close to her workplace and emphasizes hands-on learning, a teaching approach to which her children respond well.
For the rest of the article, go to Student transfers from open enrollment have financial consequences for school districts
According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, in the 2003-04 school year 18.1 percent of Racine Unified School District students were considered habitual truants.
In 2004-05 the number of habitual truants dropped to 9.7 percent; in 2005-06 the number decreased further to 8.7 percent and in 2006-07 the number fell even further to 8.1 percent. In 2007-08 the number rose slightly to 9.1 percent and then made significant jumps in 2008-09 and 2009-10 to 14.5 percent and 15.5 percent respectively.
While it’s impossible to determine the exact reasons why there were significant reductions in the number of chronic truants and the subsequent (and equally significant) rise over the past two school years – there are a number of factors that I believe contributed to the decline and may explain why we are seeing the truancy rate creeping back up again.
In the early 2000s, members of the community took notice of the shocking number of RUSD students who were considered chronic truants.
This observation engendered a great deal of concern and spurred the creation of the Racine County Truancy Committee. The committee, which was comprised of individuals from a broad cross-section of the community embarked on a mission to turn those numbers around. The committee had two primary orders of business – create a comprehensive truancy plan for the school district (RUSD was only the second or third district in the state to actually ratify and implement a community developed truancy plan) and raise awareness of truancy as a problem, not only for the schools but for the community as a whole.
As a group, committee members were energized and highly motivated to find solutions to the problem of chronic truancy. There were no “singular” answers, no finger pointing and most importantly – no “turf issues.” Individuals with very different backgrounds and varying perspectives found themselves working closely together in pursuit of a common end.
Within the past year, RUSD launched the Virtual School online education program; the Racine United Way announced plans to collaborate with RUSD and the community to bring state of the art programming to at risk elementary school students and the City of Racine began development of the After School Zones partnership with a wide array of community and public sector agency partners.
For the rest of the article, go to Commentary — Despite efforts, Racine truancy rate is back on the rise
Open Enrollment starts in just a few days in Wisconsin. It’s a program that allows families who live in one district to send their child to a school in another district. Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill Wednesday expanding the open enrollment period from three weeks to three months, giving parents plenty of time to make a decision.
But that’s leaving schools of all kinds, including virtual schools, waiting longer to start planning for the next school year.
Jeff LeMahieu is the Dean of Students for Wisconsin Connections Academy, a public virtual charter school based in Appleton. When he first scheduled a Thurdsday-night informational meeting for parents in Sparta, he thought he was going to have to worry about them missing a three-week open enrollment period.
For the rest of the article, go to Open enrollment extension affects schools too
Parents of students who are looking for an alternative to their current school are invited to learn more about Wisconsin Connections Academy (WCA), the state’s K-12 tuition-free, highly accountable virtual public school that enrolls students across the state, at an upcoming Information Session. Information Sessions include one-on-one time with teachers, plus the opportunity to view the curriculum and sample lessons.
The WCA Information Session will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 6:30 p.m., at Country Springs Hotel (2810 Golf Rd.) in Pewaukee. Students must apply online to WCA during the state’s Open Enrollment period, Feb. 6 through Feb. 24.
For the rest of the article, go to Wisconsin Connections Academy Parent Information Session
Monday night, the school board approved a virtual school that will allow students to enroll full- or part-time online.
The virtual school, which is now open to enrollment, allows students with different academic needs to find an education outlet.
“I think you’re looking at students who maybe don’t fit in the normal structure of a school day to take that, or you’re also looking at students who get behind in credits,” Fredrikson said.
“Often kids don’t fit into a traditional school, maybe they don’t get along with their classmates, maybe they have some issues where they’d be needed at home,” high school counselor Linda Luedtke said.
For the rest of the article, go to Two Rivers Offers a Virtual High School
TWO RIVERS — Ninth- through 12th-graders living within the boundaries of the Two Rivers School District now have another option for acquiring an education — the Two Rivers Virtual School.
School board members unanimously approved the virtual school at their meeting Monday evening, with Leigh Stegemann and Dick Rohrer absent.
The district has offered online classes from a variety of sources and also has a distance learning lab in which students can take classes taught elsewhere, but it hasn’t before had a complete virtual school.
For the rest of the article, go to TR board approves virtual school
Online High Blog
