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Oregon Editorial Rdp

January 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Online education has benefited many rural families. Students with the discipline to study on their own can enroll in an online school, such as Oregon Virtual Academy, to access diverse online classes that small hometown schools can’t offer.

The trouble is, when they enroll in an online school, state aid goes with them. Hometown schools can’t afford the loss.

In 2012, the Coquille School District will expand its online course offerings in an effort to lure back some of its 16 students who have enrolled in online schools. If the effort succeeds, the district could recapture thousands of dollars in state funding.

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Hermiston schools reach out to learners with virtual delivery

January 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Students in the Hermiston School District may soon attend classes without leaving their homes, thanks to a plan to provide virtual instruction by the fall of 2013.

Interim Superintendent Wade Smith called the trend toward online learning a revolution, one that is luring students away from traditional, brick-and-mortar public schools.

 

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Online, real-life interaction combined

December 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Students also would have access to teachers, either in person at Winter Lakes or in their home district, or online through video streaming, Sweeney said. The face time is critical to making the online program work, he said, especially when parents and students need some help with advanced coursework.

‘We find that a lot of students … try online schools and then are back within a few weeks of having left the district,” he said.

Generally that occurs because students don’t have the support they need to successfully complete work, he said. ‘But if you’re stuck and you don’t’ have an answer, it’d be nice to drive five minutes and say, ‘Hey, can you help me out with this part of it?” he added.

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Enrollment Cap Change Leads To Rapid Growth For Oregon’s Virtual Schools

December 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

SALEM, Ore. – Online public schools in Oregon are ending a year that saw a steep increase in enrollment. The spike follows a move by lawmakers to raise the cap on the number of kids who can get a so-called virtual education. It’s a decision the state’s largest teachers union opposed.

Under the old law, online charter schools had a cap on the total number of students who could enroll. Starting this school year, lawmakers chose instead to allow up to three percent of the students in any public school district across the state to enroll in one of Oregon’s full-time virtual schools.

Todd Miller is executive director of Oregon Connections Academy, the state’s largest online public charter school. Miller says enrollment has grown by nearly 25 percent this school year to more than 3,000 students.

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Online schools panel fizzles without proposal

December 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Garrett initially voted against the online school bill but later changed his vote when proponents agreed to create the task force and study ways to improve the governance of online schools. He said he also changed his vote because he didn’t think many parents would choose online schools for their children.

Reps. Brian Clem, D-Salem, and Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, also changed their votes to support the measure after initially opposing it.

Rep. Michael Dembrow, a Portland Democrat who chaired the task force, said the field of online learning is rapidly evolving and the committee wanted specific authority from the Legislature to study more than just full-time online schooling.

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Legislative panel that paved way for expansion of online schools fizzles without proposal

December 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

SALEM, Ore. — A committee created in a grand bargain to settle issues from one of the most contentious battles of the last Oregon legislative session — the expansion of online charter schools — has disbanded without proposing any changes.

The Task Force on Virtual School Governance was supposed to recommend ways to improve the oversight of online schools. Its creation helped sway three Democrats to switch their votes, allowing the narrow passage of a contentious bill giving more students access to Internet-based learning.

But the panel issued a report this week asking the Legislature only for authority to expand its scope and continue working next year. The report says the panel got a late start and didn’t have enough time to thoroughly investigate the topic.

It was supposed to issue the report by Oct. 1, but didn’t hold its first meeting until Nov. 3, in part because Gov. John Kitzhaber’s office was slow to make appointments for two of the five seats on the panel.

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Online schools task force disbands; no changes proposed

December 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

SALEM — A committee created in a grand bargain to settle issues from one of the most contentious battles of the last Oregon legislative session — the expansion of online charter schools — has disbanded without proposing any changes.

The Task Force on Virtual School Governance was supposed to recommend ways to improve the oversight of online schools. Its creation helped sway three Democrats to switch their votes, allowing the narrow passage of a contentious bill giving more students access to Internet-based learning.

But the panel issued a report this week asking the Legislature only for authority to expand its scope and continue working next year. The report says the panel got a late start and didn’t have enough time to thoroughly investigate the topic.

It was supposed to issue the report by Oct. 1, but didn’t hold its first meeting until Nov. 3, in part because Gov. John Kitzhaber’s office was slow to make appointments for two of the five seats on the panel.

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Virtual charter school enrollment soars after caps are lifted

December 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

PORTLAND, Ore.- Enrollment in Oregon’s two largest virtual charter schools has jumped, following the removal of a legislatively imposed enrollment cap that limited the number of students each school could accept.

The Oregon Virtual Academy (ORVA) has more than doubled its number of students since the cap previously held enrollment at 600 students. ORVA now has over 1,300 students and two additional grade levels, 9th and 10th grades. The school was previously capped at 8th grade.

The Oregon Connections Academy (ORCA) has reached a student enrollment of 3,000 students, with 700 to 800 students who are pending enrollment or who have started the enrollment process. Last year, the school was capped at 2,574 students.

Laura Dillon, an elementary school teacher and the outreach liaison at ORCA, said that not all students pending enrollment will finish the process for various reasons.

Dillon and Jim Moyer, head of schools at ORVA, both agreed that lifting the enrollment cap on virtual charter schools directly affected the increase in students experienced by each school.

“Families know that they are not going to be put on a waiting list and they don’t have to wait to be enrolled in our school,” said Dillon.

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Tigard-Tualatin School District seeks real space for virtual school

December 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Tigard-Tualatin Schools District is one step closer to kicking off a new online learning academy that could open its doors as soon as February.

In October, the School Board gave the thumbs up for an online pilot program that would allow students the option to take certain classes online instead of in a traditional classroom.

“We knew that we had a bunch of kids in the district already doing online classes (through other districts),” said district spokeswoman Susan Stark Haydon. “There was obviously a need, and we thought we could be able to fill it.”

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Online Courses for Elementary and High School Students?

November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In an effort to accommodate students with varying levels of advancement and in reaction to state budgetary cuts, at least 30 states in the US now let elementary and high school students take all their courses online.

According to Evergreen Education Group, a consulting firm that works with online schools, an estimated 250,000 students nationwide are enrolled in full-time virtual schools, a 40 percent increase in the last three years. And the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, a trade group, says two million kids take at least one class online.

Advocates say online schooling can save states money, offer curricula customized to each student and give parents more choice in education.

“I don’t think learning has to happen at school, in a classroom with 30 other kids and a teacher… corralling all children into learning the same thing at the same pace,” Allison Brown, a Georgia mother of three, says. “We should rethink the environment we set up for education.”

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