From Tallahassee.com by Lisa Fingeroot
Parents can begin customizing their child's educational plans from the very start after Gov. Rick Scott signed into law an expansion of virtual-school offerings that will allow children as young as kindergartners to take online classes and still attend a traditional school.
Leon County officials are not sure how the plan will work for Tallahassee elementary schools because of the many factors involved in scheduling, computer access, and adult supervision, but they will soon begin discussions on how best to accommodate the online options.
The new law also will require the Florida Virtual School to provide services for exceptional student education and also requires the school to provide the English for speakers of Other Languages program.
"We have a lot of logistics to work out," said Peggy Youngblood, divisional director for elementary schools in Leon County. They must decide whether a child will be able to access a computer in the classroom or the media center to take his online classes or whether he can go home with a parent to use a computer without missing any instructional time in the traditional classroom.
Youngblood suggests parents talk to principals and teachers before making the decision to use the part-time online option. Principals will be ready to answer questions when school begins in August, she added.
Educators think the online option will be used primarily by parents who believe their children need to move faster than the traditional classroom setting will allow. But Youngblood said traditional schools also are able to accommodate those needs and parents should discuss the options with principals before assuming online classes are the only alternative.
Leon County Virtual School, a franchise of the Florida Virtual System, began some blending of online and traditional schools last year when fourth- and fifth-grade students who scored at a level 5 on the math portion of the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT) were allowed to take accelerated math classes online. Before that, an elementary school student was either a full-time virtual school student or attended a traditional school. There were no part time options available.
About 800 Leon County students — out of nearly 33,000 — attend some form of virtual school, said Jessica Lowe, assistant principal at the Leon Virtual School. She has 15 students in grades K-5 who attend full-time virtual school and 12 children in the fourth and fifth grades who take online classes part time.
While the full-time students participate in their classes using a computer at home, they are public school students and not home-school students, Lowe said. The difference is in the curriculum. Parents completely choose the program for home schooling. Leon County has about 1,200 home-schooled children.
"If I could describe virtual schooling," Lowe said, "I would say individualized. How the students interact with the content and (teacher) is very individualized."
Most of the 12 children who are enrolled part time in an accelerated math class take their online class after school, Lowe said. Even if a student scores well enough on the FCAT to qualify for an accelerated class, he still must be tested on grade level skills when the FCAT rolls around again. Because of that, many parents opt to keep their child in his grade-level math class as well as the accelerated class.
Many educators, however, question the use of online classes for elementary school children, said Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association. When he gave a recent legislative update to the Leon County School Board, Blanton said many believe elementary school children are simply too young to get what they need from an online class. He added that not a lot of online curriculum programs target the elementary school age so not many have been tested and proven successful.
"Clearly, there is a concern about the younger children taking virtual classes," said state Sen. Bill Montford, a Democrat from Tallahassee who also heads the Florida Association of District School Superintendents. "But on the other hand, their parents feel comfortable and their parents feel they are prepared. We are moving into a new era in public education and this is part of it.
The use of technology is the next logical step in education because its use has become second nature to school-age kids.
"It's the future. We will embrace it," he said. "There will be some concerns. We need to use caution and be very careful and very deliberate."
http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20120501/POLITICSPOLICY08/205010308/Virtual-school-expand-services?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7Cfrontpage&nclick_check=1
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