You are here: Home / Archives for online high schools

BHS uses Web as learning tool

November 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

All students taking online courses at BHS have the assistance of people like Bergs, whom Kopfhamer called mentor teachers.

Baraboo’s online program is not a virtual charter school like school districts in Appleton and Waukesha operate, Kopfhamer said. Under state rules, students from outside Baraboo who participate must attend school at BHS under the open enrollment program.

School Board Vice President Doug Mering noted that Baraboo is competing with other districts’ Internet schools for local students.

“When they come here, they’re on television advertising, radio advertising saying ‘We are wonderful,’” he said. “How do we get out the word that we’re wonderful, too? And it really is true.”

Board member Peter Vedro stressed the importance of Baraboo’s online program providing students in-person help from teachers in addition to virtual sessions.

“It is an in-district program, and it is guided by classroom teachers with support,” he said. “I don’t think other (online) schools can say that for our students.”

Kopfhamer said she would like to see expansion of online education opportunities.

“We are looking to see how we can blend online with summer school options,” she said. “We need to look at online for middle and elementary school students.”

Vedro said Friday many families in the community who have chosen to home-school their children, including those participating in online charter schools. Expanding online education is a way the Baraboo School District could serve traditional students as well as meet the needs of other students and parents in the community.

 

For the rest of the article, go to BHS uses Web as learning tool

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With:

Open Enrollment Law Expands School Choice for Wisconsin Families

November 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

FREDONIA, Wisc., Nov. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Hundreds of students wanting to get into a virtual charter school may qualify for immediate open enrollment under special criteria in a new Wisconsin school law, according to Wisconsin Virtual Learning Executive Director Melissa Horn.

SB2, which needs only the governor’s signature to become law, also expands Wisconsin’s open enrollment period for the next school year to three full months in February, March and April.

“Our school was very involved in promoting this bill with our legislators because hundreds of families contact us throughout the school year, looking for an educational alternative to resolve an immediate academic or behavioral problem their child is facing in school. Until now, these families sometimes had to wait over a year before their child could enroll,” Horn said.

“SB2 gives families more freedom to choose the best learning environment for their child,” she said. “With this bill, students will no longer have to wait to get the education they deserve, in the environment that works best for them.”

Whether applying for immediate enrollment under special circumstances or preparing for the spring open enrollment period, the first step for families interested in virtual school, Horn said, is to fill out the brief enrollment form on the school website, www.wisconsinvl.net. This starts the enrollment process and will trigger a call from a student learning advocate to discuss the needs of the family and the offerings of Wisconsin Virtual Learning.

For the rest of the article, go to Open Enrollment Law Expands School Choice for Wisconsin Families

Filed Under: Home Page, news, online high schools Tagged With: ,

Excerpts from recent Wisconsin editorials

November 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Charter schools were established in Wisconsin in 1993 to give public schools the freedom from state regulations to experiment with curriculum and staffing to create innovative programs outside of traditional classroom instruction. The ‘charter’ establishes academic goals and other performance measures the school must meet. There are currently four charter schools in Oshkosh operating within existing elementary schools.

Our concern is a panel in Madison made up of political appointees will have the power to supersede local elected officials to create charter schools in the district. It is ironic that the party which advocates smaller government and less intrusion on local affairs is on the verge of creating a system whereby the state can dictate the establishment of charter schools.

Of no less importance to public school districts are the mechanisms to fund independent charter schools. It would be another budgetary blow to local school aid that was cut by $800 million in the biennial budget and tight caps on property tax revenue. The Oshkosh school district would lose $7,775 per student enrolled in independent charter schools. Currently, districts that establish charter schools maintain the state aid.

The bill also would eliminate the cap on the number of students enrolled in virtual schools, opening the door for out-of-state interests to own and operate charter schools funded by taxpayers.

In addition, the law would modify licensing requirements for charter school teachers allowing them to be licensed for more than one subject.

And, perhaps most startling is the provision allowing school districts, if so inclined, to convert the entire system to charter schools.

For the rest of the article, go to Excerpts from recent Wisconsin editorials

Filed Under: Home Page, news, online high schools Tagged With: ,

COMING AND GOING: Open enrollment changes the face of Fond du Lac area schools

November 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

School districts count on students, literally.

Since state aid amounts are based on student enrollment, it’s essential schools retain their student population.

The size of the district allows Ripon to offer more opportunities than some of the smaller, neighboring districts, and Ripon students have traditionally performed well on statewide test results, he said. In 2010-11, three students left Ripon through open enrollment to attend online schools, but all three ended their open enrollment by the end of the first semester.

Waupun Superintendent Donald Childs said the numbers aren’t a true representation of that district’s student enrollment. Of the 122 who left, 82 never attended schools in the district.

For the rest of the article, go to COMING AND GOING: Open enrollment changes the face of Fond du Lac area schools

Filed Under: Best Online High School, Home Page, online high schools Tagged With:

Area districts not plugged in with online schools

November 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

An increasing number of online schools, known as virtual charter schools, is helping public school systems in Wisconsin pull in more students from outside their district boundaries, but Eau Claire and most other school districts in this part of the state haven’t joined in.
The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance last month released a study showing a record number of students – 34,498 – attended schools outside their home district during the 2010-11 school year. That’s the highest number since the state’s open enrollment program – which lets students attend schools outside the district in which they live – began in the 1998-99 school year.
“While open enrollment has grown steadily since program inception in 1999, the spread of online schools helped drive numbers in recent years,” a WTA statement reads.
However, none of the Chippewa Valley’s largest school districts – Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, Menomonie and Altoona – operates virtual schools. Eau Claire Superintendent Ron Heilmann said district officials have discussed the subject.
“We’ve talked about it numerous times,” Heilmann said, noting district officials studied virtual charter schools several years ago but determined opening one would be too expensive.

For the rest of the article, go to Area districts not plugged in with online schools.

Filed Under: Home Page, online high schools Tagged With: ,

School details enrollment

October 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

As the Watertown Board of Education prepares to adopt its 2010-11 school budget today, a big player in the outcome of that budget is due to open enrollment figures. This school year a record number of students locally and throughout Wisconsin participated in the state’s program.

The open enrollment program allows students to attend school elsewhere than in their own district.

This year Watertown had a total of 55 students who live outside of the district that chose to attend school in Watertown. On the other side of the issue, there were a total of 185 students who live in the Watertown school district who elected to withdraw from Watertown. These students either attend a neighboring school district, are home-schooled or enroll in a virtual school.

The open enrollment figures for this school year compared to the 2010-11 school year have increased. Last year there were 49 students who came into the Watertown district and 162 who left the district.

“The enrollment numbers came in much higher than what I projected,” Doug Linse, district director of business services, said. “That means some lost revenue for the district.”

For the rest of the article, go to School details enrollment

Filed Under: Home Page, news, online high schools Tagged With:

Waukesha School District’s Virtual School Getting Makeover, New Name

October 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Waukesha School Board’s virtual school, iQ Academy, is getting a makeover for next school year.

The School Board voted Wednesday night to approve a name change, a marketing plan and curriculum modifications, with all changes deemed necessary as the district takes over control of the virtual school from its current partner, KC Distance Learning.

Starting next year, the new name of the virtual school will be Wisconsin Academy of Virtual Education (WAVE), causing one board member to humorously point out that the name follows in the long tradition of education to have a strong acronym.

Most of the discussion by the board about the changes was about the marketing plan for the virtual school, with some board members balking at the $460,000 estimated price tag.

For the rest of the article, go to Waukesha School District’s Virtual School Getting Makeover, New Name

Filed Under: Best Online High School, Home Page, online high schools, online schools Tagged With: ,

Oconto Falls School Board meeting

October 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Lehto also provided information on this past year’s summer school. Based on the number of hours attended, this converted to the equivalent of 65 additional students that would be used various state aid calculation formulas. This had been a record high for attendance at the summer school program.

In the Administrator’s Report, the final official September enrollment figures showed a total enrollment of 1866. This was an approximate increase of about 30 students from the same time last year. This was a positive trend since there was a drop of enrollment for each of the last few years.

Open enrollment figures were also presented. These showed that 116 students were open enrolling out of the district. Of that number, nine students were attending on-line virtual schools. On the other hand, the 121 students had open enrolled into the district, which was a positive gain. This continued the trend of many years, although this past year that had not been the case.

For the rest of the article, go to Oconto Falls School Board meeting

Filed Under: Home Page, news, online high schools Tagged With:

TR Schools: The face of education keeps on changing

October 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Computer-based courses

Schools also are using computer-based courses to provide instruction to students anytime, anywhere. There is, however, a difference between computer-based courses and virtual schools. In computer-based courses, the computer provides all of the instruction and assessment. The student progresses at his/her own rate and can only continue when a certain level of proficiency is demonstrated. The benefit to the student is that learning can take place when and where they are ready.

Virtual schools/courses incorporate the use of the Internet in a variety of ways. Typically, there is an actual teacher who is providing assignments and assessments through the use of email. When the student completes the work or the assessment, he emails his work back to the teacher for grading. Students of virtual schools may have hardbound books or use e-books. Each school is different.

While Two Rivers High School provides many of these opportunities, we recognize the changing needs of our student population and will be adding a virtual school option in the very near future.

For the rest of  the article, go to TR Schools: The face of education keeps on changing

Filed Under: Home Page, news, online high schools Tagged With:

Enrollment drops by 65 at Two Rivers schools

October 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The most notable change in this year’s enrollment is the increase in Two Rivers students attending virtual schools through open enrollment, Fredrikson said. That number increased from 26 in 2010-11 to 31 this year, a 19 percent increase.

Because of that increase, the district is looking into providing virtual learning through Cooperative Educational Service Agency 9, possibly as early as second semester of this school year, in an attempt to keep more students enrolled in the district, according to Fredrikson.

A total of 65 residents of the Two Rivers district are attending school elsewhere through open enrollment, while 52 students from other districts are enrolled in Two Rivers schools, according to the chart. That compares with 51 residents who attended elsewhere last year and 63 students who came to Two Rivers from other districts.

For the rest of the article, go to Enrollment drops by 65 at Two Rivers schools

Filed Under: Home Page, news, online high schools Tagged With:
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »