New Horizons for this Olde Educator--"Eliminated"

Well, well, well. Just when I thought I was on track to spend the final few years of my education career making sure that MNPS Virtual School (which I helped create from nothing) has a future worthy of all the planning, design and implementation we have put into it since August, 2010,  it appears that my job position is to be "eliminated" on June 30, 2016.


I'm looking forward to exploring new opportunities in the coming school year, most likely in an elementary classroom for the first time in nearly six years. I have applied for several 10 month teaching positions and I'm hoping to hear soon from the right principal in the right school who has an identified need for an experienced, innovative, and student-centered classroom teacher in grade 3 or 4. Perhaps this is just the world's way of telling me I need to be working more closely, and daily, with young learners--giving them direct and daily support and encouragement, challenging them, and helping them understand how to be both safe and productive in today's and tomorrow's accelerating landslide of information. One thing is  sure--we'll have fun together. That's been my teacher tagline since my first 3rd grade classroom in 1996:

I'm looking forward.

But wait, one slight detour...

"Eliminated?" I didn't know that was even a thing. Wow. Let's see what Google has to say about that word:

Let me say it straight: I find myself feeling baffled, confused, devalued and even disrespected by what has been presented as a necessity "due to budget cuts for the school year 2016-17." But I will not let all that make me bitter. I am too positive for that. I care too much. I have too much to offer to let it bring me down. Forward we go.

After June 30, dear reader, I'm a free agent.

If you know of any interesting opportunities that might be pursued, let me know. I don't want to move from my new home in The Nations Nashville, but I can and will commute for the right work.

Have a great week!
Scott

Accreditation! Check!

Yesterday MNPS Virtual School rounded out two days of intensive review by a four person visiting committee from AdvanceED, the accreditation organization which handles Continuous Improvement model review for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

The extensive review process was described afterward by one of our Academy of Business and Marketing partners, who had undergone it herself, as "maybe more intense than writing my [Masters] dissertation." It involves weeks of collaborative work within the organization, compiling documentary evidence that the school meets or exceeds a set of criteria set by the reviewing organization, which serves over 32,000 schools in 173 countries. The process needs be driven by a single person in the school but everyone in the team is tapped to help provide evidential  documentation. Dr. Witty was the driver, and our "small but mighty" Executive Leadership team, aided by most of our Adjunct v-Teachers, contributed.

In order to even begin compiling said evidence, long meetings with a detailed self-evaluation tool were held in order to identify which kinds of documentation may be needed for each individual element in an extensive rubric. 

During the visit, the four team members from AdvanceED scheduled and held separate interview sessions with stakeholders, including students, parents, staff, faculty, and administration. They sequestered themselves in a conference room for hours, also spending time meeting off-campus in their hotel, discussing and debating findings toward preparing an exit review report rooted in consensus.

At around 2:30 yesterday, Dr. Karla Gable, the leader of the review team, reported out. She presented our brief "External Review Exit Report for Digital Learning Institutions." Toward the end, Dr. Gable shared what AdvancED calls their "Index of Education Quality, "a set of numbers that represent the review findings in quantitative ways so that they can be compared with those achieved by all of those many schools in their system. Our scores in each of the free domains, "Teaching and Learning Impact," "Leadership Capacity," and "Resource Utilization," were very significantly higher than the averages. I won't detail those but I will share that our overall score was 337.80 and the AE Network average overall score is 282.79. The final slide in her PowerPoint set proclaimed the news:

Dr. Karla Gable prepares to present final findings

We had done it. The information we had collected and shared in a massive Dropbox folder, then summarized in a 43 slide PowerPoint of our own on Monday, had clearly demonstrated that we deserve to be among the digital learning institutions accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The committee team's report further noted a few things, including that the strides toward excellence we have made over our brief life as a program and a school--these at other districts have only been made with both funding levels and staffing levels at 3 or 4 times the ones we have had in place. Either we are very efficient or we are very lucky. I'm guessing it's a combination of the two. And we are blessed to be led by Dr. James Witty, our Executive Principle, who is organized to a tee and completely knowledgeable about how Continuous Improvement philosophies and concepts drive a school to excellence.

Our team is very special, and by that I mean not only our core Leadership team--I extend that description to everyone in the school, all the stakeholders, all of us. Importantly, now that we have distinguished our school in this way we can return our full attention to exercising the continuous improvement we have demonstrated thus far. Thank you, AdvanceED, SACS, and Metro Nashville Public Schools. We're on it.

Over and out,

Scott

Cross-posted from MNPS Virtual School

From Online Learning to Classroom Practice. Why not?

This has been sitting in my draft folder at Blogger for over a year. I had been thinking I'd circulate it for publication in an education journal or magazine but hey, what's a blog for anyway? It's for sharing. Let's share:

Virtual Lessons Learned: From Online Learning to the Classroom

By Scott Merrick,
vLearning Support Specialist, Academy Coach, All-Stars Lead Learner, and v-Lead Teacher

At the end of this summer, the small but mighty team at MNPS Virtual School will have been re-inventing and facilitating Tennessee pre-K through 12th grade public school online learning for  four years. True, online learning for high schoolers and younger students has been popping up in various guises in pockets around the state, but it is a verifiable fact that Metro Nashville Public Schools Virtual School is and will always be the first public virtual school recognized as such by the State of Tennessee. That is a story in and of itself, but the purpose if this story is to take note of some lessons we have learned and to pass them on to teachers and administrators who may not be involved in online learning. As our public school district intentionally moves to a fully blended model of individualized learning, it's my belief that many of our practices at our fully online school could be modified to be essential elements of that practice.

In the course of building our school, we have benefited by researching procedures other distance learning entities have put in place; and we continue to research, refine, and invent ways to achieve our mission, which is stated as follows:

To provide Tennessee students with an individualized, dynamic, and empowering virtual education while developing graduates who are college, career, and community ready.

Incorporating some of the habits of duty (I think I just coined that term) that we have developed in this distance learning environment into the “regular classroom” would seem to make all the sense in the world. Florida Virtual School, in particular, has long incorporated the first feature I will discuss, the Pacing Guide, into its Florida online schools and for its clients through its Global School. Most of their courses, many of which we have purchased through Pearson Learning and some of which we lease through Pearson from Global School, have devices built in at an introductory assignment for students to construct these. We go one better and prepare them ourselves. At the outset of each semester, every student is given access to a schedule of assignments for the entire semester. These essays, quizzes, tests, and projects are broken down into discreet sequential sets of assignments due by 11:59 pm every Saturday night.

The Pacing Guide sets clear, concrete expectations of performance, and as we shall see (and as we all should know intuitively anyway), performance is a key element of learning. Regular submission of work product demonstrates understanding. Its evaluation is often termed in the education game as “formative assessment,” and it is essential in the online environment mainly because our students do not fulfill their state-mandated compulsory education requirement by “attending” classes in a school building. In order to comply with the traditional attendance requirement, our students have to perform: “Performance” equals “Attendance.”

This equation has its ramifications. First, it sets every student up with understandable and readily re-accessible expectations. Second, it both challenges them and frees them: It doesn’t matter if a student works all day Monday from 8am to 6pm and does not login the rest of the week, as long as she submits all the required weekly assignments by 6pm. That is amazingly freeing. A young mother then has all week to spend with her child without having to be away from him for seven hours Monday through Friday. If she would rather spend two hours each day working in one class daily, that is up to her. She has control--unless, that is, she chooses to relinquish it by falling "off pace."

A requirement of performance further arms every online teacher with a constantly refreshing and empowering awareness of where each student stands in his or her learning path. At MNPS Virtual School, every one of our teachers is fitted with a constantly evolving measuring stick that allows them to see where each individual student is either progressing, stalling, or failing. A system we call Performance Concerns gives teeth to this measurement tool and helps us support every student. (Note: this procedure has changed since the original writing of this post--I now download the Concerns and pass them along to our v-Enrollment Specialist and v-School Counselor, who analyze them and pass a version revised according to knowledge of individual student circumstances along to our v-Secretary, who creates and mails the snail-mail letters noted in policy below. Our v-School Counselor now communicates via email to School Counselors for Part-Time students throughout the district).

Here is the policy:

Five (5) Percent:

When the student is five (5) percent of the course off pace, the Virtual Teacher will communicate directly with the student and parent(s)/guardian(s) that the learner is off pace in the virtual course.

Ten (10) Percent:

When the student is ten (10) percent of the course off pace, the Executive Principal will send an official notification to the student and parent(s)/guardian(s) that the learner is off pace. Such notification will include the Virtual Truancy policy and ramifications for violating Tennessee’s Compulsory School Attendance Law. Additionally, the Executive Principal will notify the appropriate Attendance Officer who will require a truancy intervention meeting with the student, MNPS Virtual School administration, and the parent(s)/guardian(s). When a part time student, the School Counselor and the Executive Principal from the student’s school of primary enrollment will receive a copy of the notification and participate in the intervention meeting. For full-time students, district officials may also require the student to report to MNPS Virtual School’s Student Center until the learner is back on pace.

Fifteen (15) Percent:

When the student is fifteen (15) percent off pace, the Executive Principal will send an official notification to the student and parent(s)/guardian(s) notifying all parties that the student is truant and in violation of Tennessee’s Compulsory School Attendance Law. Additionally, the Executive Principal will notify the appropriate district Attendance Officer who will initiate the issuance of legal notifications and juvenile court intervention.  When the student is a part-time Virtual School student, the Executive Principal of MNPS Virtual School will also route a copy of the notification to the student’s School Counselor and Executive Principal at the student’s primary school of enrollment.

Twenty (20) or More Percent Off-Pace:

When the student is twenty (20) or more percent off-pace and the student and parent(s)/guardian(s) are not responding to the interventions outlined in this policy, MNPS Virtual School reserves the right to administratively drop the student from the virtual course(s). If the student is full-time, MNPS Virtual School reserves the right to withdraw the student from the Virtual School. When the student is a part-time Virtual School student, the Executive Principal of MNPS Virtual School will also inform the student’s School Counselor and Executive Principal at the student’s primary school of enrollment that the student has been administratively dropped from the course.

http://vlearn.mnps.org/AssetFactory.aspx?did=85991

So, performance equals attendance. What does that mean in practice? In a brick and mortar classroom, a student can, theoretically, come to school, sit in the back of the classroom, and not turn in a single assignment all semester, all without being truant. Not so in Virtual School. Performance equals attendance. We have a process we call Performance Concerns Reportage which tracks, reports, and supports students throughout the district who may be taking one online course during the school day. The same process supports our full-timers.

Nearly every Monday morning (holiday weeks nothing is due and some weeks the reportage is current grade--for mid-quarter progress reports or semester report cards) I download the privately shared Google spreadsheet document our teachers use to report Performance Concerns (this shared document also serves as our current online roster) and I sort it in various ways to create school specific reports. Typically I create an email each for 20-25 School Counselors--copying their Principals, my Principal, and any in-school facilitators a school has established in that role. My report is channeled to our staff who create truancy letters according to each student’s percentage off-pace according to policy. My questions are these: Why can't a classroom teacher report out  similarly? Why, ever again, does a parent need to be blind-sided by their child's failing grade?

Full disclosure: I have a personal motivation for asking these questions. In the fall of 2012, my 16 year old son failed four of his six 10th grade semester courses. Prior to that, he had experienced some academic ups and downs, but he had never failed a class. Aside from one telephone call from a concerned math teacher early in the semester, and a substandard but not bleak 9 weeks report card, there was absolutely no communication from any teacher until we received the final report card with the failing grades. I cannot imagine this experience is highly unique.

In our virtual setting, partly due to the predominantly asynchronous nature of our part-time (though Certified and Highly Qualified) Adjunct Teachers and their students, Communication is a required element of pay period “deliverables” (items of work completion of which are required for a paycheck).Teachers make a Welcome Call (via telephone, Skype, Google Chat or any other synchronous voice or video tool) and are required to document this important communication with student and parent,. They also carry out periodic one-to-one Discussion Based Assessments (DBAs) and mid-semester Progress Report calls. In courses requiring pre-tests for state mandated End of Course tests, we further require one-on-one Data Communication conversations dissecting the results of the student's pre-test and a plan to address learning gaps in preparation for the final test.

While all that may seem like a lot of communication, each piece of it is essential. More to the point, teachers in brick and mortar classrooms, who in many cases are relying on quizzes and tests for formative assessments, could think about holding DBAs instead of or in addition to those quizzes. Currently, in worst cases, what are supposed to be formative assessments driving re-teaching in the classroom are only letter grades in a spiral bound grade book, not informing remediation or helping craft an individualized learning pathway at all.

In order to streamline scheduling DBAs, we utilize an online tool called Appointlet. Each teacher sets up a free account and establishes parameters for meeting times and it is the student's responsibility to schedule an appointment and then to call or Skype at the appointed time. This really helps reduce email glut, speeds up the process, and creates a running record of communication; and our teachers report that they love it. It also syncs to a teacher's Google calendar and if they have that tool set up to do so, it can message their smart phones whenever a DBA is scheduled.

Our teachers regularly comment that they feel they are able to get to know their virtual students better than they are able to establish relationships with the students in their traditional classrooms. Any guesses why?    

Twice each semester, we require another kind of deliverable of our teachers. At each 9 weeks periods, every teacher must post online and make available to his or her students a Digital Learning Object designed to provide review information for upcoming exams. This is one of my favorite innovations that our team has brought to the table, because it requires teachers to creatively and engagingly address and reframe course content. We define DLOs as any course review tool residing online in a digital format which is by design readily accessible and reusable. We further require that each Digital Learning Object is designed specifically toward supporting success in the course’s final examination.

So far our growing collection of these objects includes PowerPoint slide shows, Quizlet stacks, Prezis, Padlet (formerly Wallwisher) “walls,” goanimate.com videos, YouTube videos, wikis, and more. With the proliferation of new content creation apps and presentation technologies, we look forward to engaging not only students, but their teachers, in expressing what they know and have learned in evermore exciting ways. I know of many classroom teachers who are already creating this kind of review content for their students, but I share it here because if you are not, you certainly should be. Hint: The printed textbook is dead.

The final piece I want to offer in this discussion is our after-school Learning Labs. We believe that the asynchronous online environment can be particularly challenging for students in math and science courses. To address this need, we schedule weekly science, language, and math sessions in our recently redesigned Student Center. With netbooks available and Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) encouraged, these support struggling students in personalized ways, often with a teacher who is not their primary Virtual Teacher. We are finding that, in many cases, this extra bit of direct "just in time" instruction can shore up the asynchronous course content in ways that can make all the difference for a student.

For students in courses for which there is a state-mandated End Of Course (EOC) examination, we require pretesting followed by Data Conversations and face to face EOC Labs to address areas where learning has not been accomplished.

With Google Hangouts allowing up to 10 simultaneous video connections with desktop and application sharing, even more synchronous support will be rolled out in the form of topic-specific small group help sessions, often spontaneously motivated by topics arising through DBAs or assignments. Why couldn't a classroom teacher adopt this tool and run with it for after-school sessions in the same vein? For that matter, mightn't a tweetchat serve a similar function in some circumstances? There I go, asking questions again.

At MNPS Virtual School, we will stop at nothing to ensure learning success for each and every student, in each and every online class. As we continue to improve and to refine our procedures, our policies, and our people, we will leave no learning tool untested and no efficacious learning tool unused.Literally the only thing we will not do to support our students is to do the work for them.

Hopefully, some of the lessons we have learned thus far can translate into increased success for your own students. Keep up with developments as they develop by connecting via our Facebook page, our Twitter feed, or our website.

We don’t know it all. We continue to learn. That's why we're here, after all.

Happy Presidents' Day and a bit of news re MNPS Virtual School

Things move apace here at MNPS Virtual School. Though it's a holiday for students and a Professional Day for teachers, our whole team (5 dynamic individuals) are each and every one of us in to work today, working working working. We are providing a valuable service to district students over this upcoming Spring "Intersession" the first week of the district's first two-week long Spring Break and Spring Break itself), providing "Bridge Math Intensive," our first real foray into the world of Blended Learning. Students, for a nominal registration fee, will complete in two weeks a course normally running a full 18 week semester. It will be online, but every morning of the 9 days the students attend our physical School, they will work mornings with two stellar online (and classroom) math teachers, then after lunch they will attend intense Math Lab and continue working in small groups with yet another wonderful teacher.

Bridge Math Intensive--and the intensive effort it will require on the part of teachers, administration, and students--will be of particular help to Seniors who may only lack that 5th math in order to graduate on time.

This is what continually amazes me about the teachers with whom we work. Sure, it's an opportunity for them to pick up a little extra money over their Break, but believe me, they are not doing it for the money. They care. They care deeply. In addition to customized registration procedures for BMI (no, not the songwriter's licensing agency--Bridge Math Intensive), we're working this week to open registration for our Summer Success Program, an 8 week fee-based (and no, funding does not happen for summer school locally or, to my knowledge, anywhere in the state) during which students will complete a half-credit course (often one semester of a year long class) for credit. This will require its own set of procedures and mechanisms for registration and delivery. Finally, we're working on new mechanisms and procedures for registration for school year 2013-14. I posted on Facebook last week a status that may have sounded a bit smug or facetious, but I meant every word of it. To quote:

Scott Merrick -- February 13 in Nashville

I'm so glad to be in a workplace where all team members are recognized for their contributions and talents and where continuous improvement is more than a buzz phrase--it's an ever-present challenge and imperative. Thanks MNPS Virtual School and Metro Nashville Public Schools.

Be sure to tune in to Newschannel5+ (Comcast channel 250 locally) Wednesday night at 7PM until 8 to watch our esteemed Principal, Dr. James Witty, and our similarly esteemed District Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jesse Register answer community questions about Virtual School and the way we're doing it here in Nashville Public Schools: We believe we're constantly improving the right way to do it.

 Back to work, y'all. No rest for the innovative. Happy Presidents' Day!

MNPS Virtual School's New Principal!

Metro Nashville Public Schools announced yesterday that it had selected a new Principal for our MNPS Virtual School who will begin working with us April 9! The tiny but capable, earnest, tight-knit team here, who have been working together daily for a year and a half to bring online learning options to the students of Metro Nashville and Davidson County, find ourselves completely elated to welcome Dr. James Witty to our team.

Dr. Witty brings extensive policy making and programs oversight experience to our school and his experience with nontraditional schools at the State level will lend significant added value to our endeavors. We met with him in person at the School last week and he was most appreciative of the progress we have made, while clearly set on making strides that will result in a new model of virtual learning that will be a national one. First impressions are stellar ones, and we couldn't be more pleased with Dr. Register's selection of him as our new leader.

Meanwhile, we are supporting our students and teachers in every way we can, moving into the final 8 weeks of our first year as a school, toward graduating our first class of seniors on May 21st (though as a program we did send 7 seniors from our Virtual Learning Program out into the collegiate world last year).

Look for amazing things in 2012-13!

From the media release: “I am extremely excited to be a part of the innovative work of the Virtual School,” says Witty. “I have  dedicated my career to working on behalf of nontraditional learners. As MNPS continues to expand the number of pathways for students to earn a high school diploma, I am humbled to be a part of this innovative and important work. I look forward to leading the dynamic team at the Virtual School and making the school a national model.”

Read the formal media announcement here!

Virtual's Cool!

The above logo from http://cooltext.com says it all. We're cool. We're a school. Whatever else happens in the State of Tennessee, now a wild west wide open experimental ground for profit-seeking distance learning vendors who can corral a local school district into turning over the reins of its development to their commercial entity, Metro Nashville Public Schools has created the first virtual high school in Tennessee's history. Here's our small but dedicated team's picture with the Mayor to prove it!

            Kelly Brown, Barbra Thoeming, Mayor Karl Dean, Scott Merrick, Michael Terry, and Sherry Hill at the Mayor's 1st Day Celebration 2011-12

Rally on! More updates as we announce changes and improvements. For now, visit http://vlearn.mnps.org for everything we know!

NewsChannel5 in Nashville Covers Virtual School

We'll be at the Mayor's First Day Celebration today, Sunday, August 7 to share the developments at MNPS Virtual School. This piece from Nashville NewsChannel5 helps explain our excitement! Yay, Gabby and Barbra. And yay to the rest of the team who's been working so hard for nearly a year to make this happen!

I'm a Slacker (Not Really)

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted since July 6. This is some kinda record. I just want ya'll to know that I'm not clinging by my fingernails to the edge of the earth since ISTE11. I've just been working like a madman to get our Virtual School off the ground here in Nashville, and it sometimes seems like every day is more packed and (thankfully) more productive than the last. 


Here's where we stand:


We were granted the first official Virtual School number from the State of Tennessee. Our MNPS Virtual School (named by the school board over our own recommendations, but that's how things work in big school systems and it's growing on me) is as of today accepting enrollment requests. We'll have seats for 100 Full-Timers and up to 1000 Part-Timers this year as we begin hiring adjunct teachers to facilitate the Florida Virtual School "Easy Start" content and we search for a district Learning Management System (by committee, of course) to serve it up in. We've been interviewing for adjunct teachers to teach our core courses and looking at other options for our kids, and we truly look forward to making this happen. I promise to be a better blogger soon, but I wanted to share our new banner/logo here, just to note that it's really happening!

We'll be setting up shop in the historic Cohn Adult Learning Center, taking over a tasty wing of the top floor where we'll administrate, consult, collaborate, and facilitate our way into the future. I've been working on the website all week, and though it's not "there" yet it's certainly "getting there." 

For a good rundown from a local perspective, see Nashville City Paper's July 26, 2011 article "Metro Nashville Public Schools prepped to open virtual school" which does a good job of summarizing!

Don't be a stranger!

Please Call Your Tennessee Congressman or Senator

and ask them to support House Bill 0732, the "Virtual Public Schools Act" slated to go before the Senate Education Subcommittee today. Here is the bill:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.capitol.tn.gov%2FBills%2F107%2FBill%2FHB0732.pdf

and just because I can, here it is in clickless form:

HOUSE BILL 732

By Brooks H

AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 49, Chapter 16, relative to virtual schools and to enact  the "Virtual Public Schools Act".

WHEREAS, meeting the educational needs of children in Tennessee's schools is of the  greatest importance to the future welfare of the state; and

WHEREAS, closing the achievement gap between high-performing students, including the gap between minority and non-minority students, and between economically disadvantaged  students and their more advantaged peers, is a significant and present challenge; and

WHEREAS, providing a broader range of educational options to parents and utilizing existing resources, along with technology, may help students in Tennessee improve their academic achievement and

WHEREAS, many school districts currently lack the capacity to provide other public school choices for students whose schools are high priority schools; now, therefore,

BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE:

SECTION 1. Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 49, Chapter 16, is amended by deleting  the part in its entirety and by substituting instead Sections 2 through 10

SECTION 2. This chapter shall be known and may be cited as the "Virtual Public Schools Act."

SECTION 3. The purpose of this chapter is to provide Tennessee families with an alternative choice to access additional educational resources in an effort to improve academic achievement.

SECTION 4. As used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:

(1) "Sponsor" means an LEA or the department of education; and 

(2) "Virtual school" means an independent public school in which the school uses technology in order to deliver a significant portion of instruction to its students via the Internet in a virtual or remote setting.

SECTION 5. A virtual school may be sponsored by an LEA or the department of education may establish a virtual school. A virtual school shall be a public school and shall be provided equitable treatment and resources as any other public school in the state.

SECTION 6. A virtual school shall provide each student enrolled in the school:

(1) Access to a sequential curriculum that meets or exceeds the curriculum standards adopted by the state board of education. The sequential curriculum shall have an interactive program with significant online components;

(2) The same length of time for learning opportunities per academic year that is required by law for public school students, unless such school can show that a student  has demonstrated mastery or completion of an appropriate subject area; and

(3) Regular assessment in language arts, math, science and social studies.

SECTION 7. A virtual school shall maintain an administrative office within the state.  This office shall be considered its principal place of business.

SECTION 8. Any student who is eligible for enrollment in a public school in this state may enroll in a virtual school. Sponsors are authorized to charge tuition to any person not enrolled in a public school in this state.

SECTION 9. In order to encourage collaboration among LEAs, a virtual school is authorized to operate according to the authority granted by the Educational Cooperation Act compiled in chapter 2, part 13 of this title.

SECTION 10. A virtual school shall be evaluated annually by its sponsor based on the following criteria:

(1) The extent to which the school demonstrates increases in student  achievement according to the goals of its authorizing contract and state academic

(2) The accountability and viability of the virtual school, as demonstrated by its academic, fiscal and operational performance.

SECTION 11. This act shall take effect July 1, 2011, the public welfare requiring it.

From Metro Nashville Public Schools News 08-06-2010

MNPS Virtual High School: A new era in education

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Aug 6, 2010) – Imagine the day that all 22 credits needed for high school graduation could be earned in a student’s own time, a time when students will be able to learn at their own pace earning credits based on mastery not seat time. Metro Nashville Public Schools is excited to say that day is here thanks to the district’s new Virtual High School.

“Virtual High School will open so many doors for so many students,” said Executive Director of Instructional Technology Dr. Kecia Ray. “We will now be able to meet students where they are on their path to finish high school on time and provide options for students where the traditional school or classroom is not conducive to their learning style. Our opportunities with Virtual High School are unlimited.”

For the 2010-11 school year, Virtual High School will seat 10-15 full-time students and will be able to seat more than a thousand part-time students at any given time. 

Full-time students can take up to three courses at a time. Though all courses will be taught entirely online, the group will be required to meet at least once each semester for non-academic reasons, such as social skills and bonding. Students will maintain a Virtual High School blog and other social elements to help them feel part of a bigger community.

“The beauty of virtual education is that students are in control of their own education,” said Associate Superintendent of High Schools Jay Steele. “We want to meet students where they are academically, regardless of age or geographic location.”

Upon completion of a course, they can immediately enroll in a new course, regardless of day or month. This will allow all students the opportunity for accelerated learning. Eligibility guidelines are still being developed, though five full-time students have already been identified for the upcoming school year. The district is now accepting full time students or students may enroll part time through their regular high school.

Ray explains this first class will be very small so that the district can “build out student support.”

“We have to be able to provide every student certain support services -- access to advisors and counselors, assistance with financial aid and post-secondary education opportunities, online resources like libraries, social networking -- all the things students in traditional high schools have access to. So we will start with a small group of full-time students in 2010-11, but we expect to be completely open by 2011.”

The school will also be open to students enrolled in other high schools in the district. These students will take a regular load of classes at their enrolled high school and be able to take additional courses online. This will benefit students who want to take classes not offered at their regular school, or those who want to get ahead but not miss out on the traditional high school experience. There will be a fee for non-Metro students; it has not been determined.

All students interested in Virtual High School must have access to a computer. Parents must also be prepared to learn. All parents of full-time students will be expected to participate in a training program that will teach them how to help their children.

About online learning

Online learning is different from e-learning, which MNPS already offers in the form of A+ Credit Recovery. While e-learning does not require an actual instructor, every online course has a full-time instructor. The teacher may be in another state, but he or she monitors and instructs the students daily.

MNPS will contract with an online learning vendor to locate and provide courses. The district will purchase so many “seats” which can be used for any course and any student. One of the greatest benefits to online learning is the unlimited number and type of courses MNPS will be able to offer students. According to Ray, “Japanese, AP Archaeology, you name it. If it’s out there, we can offer it.”

MNPS has a Coordinator for Virtual Learning and a Virtual Curriculum Specialist in place. Coordinator Barbra Thoeming worked with Florida Virtual School as an instructor and Instructional Manager. In addition, she was an online student during her Master’s Degree program. This gives her a unique insight into the needs of students, parents, and teachers in the virtual environment.  

Specialist Scott Merrick was recently selected as a National Association of Independent Schools “Teacher of the Future” and is chairperson of the Virtual Learning Environment Special Interest Group for Virtual Environments. He served 14 years as a Technology Coordinator at University School of Nashville.

Virtual High School will be funded through federal grants. This is the first school in our state to offer online learning in this capacity.

Important Reminder:

The 2010-2011 school year begins on Thursday, August 12, 2010, with new immunization requirements for pre-school, pre-K, kindergarten and 7^th grade students. Vaccination information is available, in English and Spanish, at   http://www.mnps.org/Page68374.aspx.

- MNPS -

Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools serve more than 76,000 students with the goal of being the first choice for families in Nashville and Davidson County. The governing body for MNPS is the Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County Board of Public Education, a nine-member group elected by residents of Metropolitan Nashville. For more information, please visit www.mnps.org.