CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Uncertainty about the upcoming school year is drawing eyes to Ohio’s e-schools, which offered fully remote learning before the coronavirus pandemic abruptly forced in-person schools to create online options.
At Ohio Connections Academy, an e-school founded in 2003, interest is up 30% year-over-year from last summer, Executive Director Marie Hanna said.
Hanna said brick-and-mortar schools are doing the best they can in a tough situation, but that families are exploring all their options while awaiting finalized back to school plans.
“Families are concerned about having a consistent educational delivery next school year and they’re thinking maybe it would be better to go to an online school that has done this for years,” she said.
Ohio has 14 public e-schools, but most of them are ranked as “dropout prevention and recovery schools,” which primarily enroll students who dropped out or are at-risk of dropping out of the public school system.
Picking whether an e-school is best for a student isn’t as simple as looking up rankings, though there are some sites, like Niche, which offer user-submitted reviews.
“They need to be a good consumer and (search) like you would buying a product for your house,” Ohio Buckeye Online School for Success director Don Thompson said. “They need to reach out and talk to the people who do it because there’s a wide variety in e-schools.”
Thompson, who worked for over a decade as a superintendent for traditional brick-and-mortar schools, said e-schools can vary greatly in approach and size, so it’s a personal decision for families on which is right for them.
Part of making the decision, though, depends on location, although many e-schools take students from throughout the state. The state intentionally built in flexibility for school reopening plans, so each of Ohio’s 610 districts are handling the pandemic slightly differently.
Some districts will be all-in on in person learning, but many are creating a fully-online curriculum that could provide a remote alternative for parents who are worried about sending their child back in person.
E-schools are rated on the state’s report card system, which gives overall letter grades and grades for categories, including “progress,” “improving at-risk K-3 readers,” and “achievement.”
Dropout prevention and recovery schools aren’t given letter grades, but instead rated using “does not meet standards,“ “meets standards,” and “exceeds standards” rankings.
Testing data is available for these schools, but might not tell the whole story behind the report cards. E-schools, even if they aren’t designated as drop-out prevention and recovery schools, draw people who might have problems with traditional schooling. E-schools also have high levels of mobility, so a student might go to school for a couple years online and then return to traditional schools and graduate.
The schools also host a high percentage of students with disabilities, Thompson said.
The state does not offer advice on how to pick an online program.
Making a decision like this is dependent on the individual student and family, but there are some universal questions to ask when deciding whether to explore e-schooling or virtual learning, including:
What is your district offering?
Assess what’s available in your district. Along with newly emerging online programs, some districts hosted online offerings before the pandemic. Cleveland schools offers the “Virtual Academy,” a fully online option, and the “School of One,” which offers small class sizes and flexible schedules with both online and in-person components -- both of which were available years prior to the pandemic.
Shaker Heights schools is offering a fully online option for the fall called the Shaker Virtual Academy. The goal is to extend the same quality of education Shaker Heights in-person schools offer to the online space, said Chris Rateno, director of Student Data Systems and Accountability.
“It has the same flavor, (the same) high expectations,” Rateno said.
E-schools are charter schools not under the district’s leadership and don’t need to operate with the same approach or curriculum, but do adhere to meeting state standards.
How much time do you have to monitor your student and communicate about schooling?
Hanna said one of the keys to online schooling is parent involvement. You will need a quiet space for your student to work and to be able to set aside time to check in on progress.
“The key is the family really knows what is expected here,” Hanna said. “... Families who are committed to doing what they need to do to support their student here are going to do well. It doesn’t matter what demographic group. It really gets down to the family understanding and engaging with us to make sure their child takes advantage of the programming we provide.”
That means being responsive when the school or a teacher reaches out to discuss a child’s progress.
Gerard Leslie, executive director of non-traditional education offerings for Cleveland schools, said virtual schooling can be even more conducive to frequent communication between parents, teachers and administrators. The district’s Virtual Academy schedules check-ins with teachers dedicated to online schooling, allowing for individualized attention.
“You’re going to have the greatest outcome when the districts and the families partner,” Leslie said.
What type of learning do you want for your student?
There are two types of online schooling, asynchronous and synchronous. Synchronous learning is where the student is engaged with a teacher in real time. Some online schools, like Ohio Buckeye Online, offer bell schedules like in-person school.
Asynchronous learning is where the child is assigned content and then can schedule times to check-in or work with teachers, but largely move along at a self-guided pace.
Virtual schools can operate with both, so check in to see what yours would offer. Districts now launching online options for their traditional schools will likely have elements of both.
Chat with your district and other e-schooling options about how much interaction children will have with their teachers. For districts, teachers could be selected from traditional schools to online teach that have particular interest in remote schooling or who have health problems or concerns that could prevent them from teaching in-person during the pandemic.
Full list of public online schools registered with the state:
-- Alternative Education Academy: F
-- *Auglaize County Educational Academy: Meets Standards
-- Buckeye On-Line School for Success: F
-- *Fairborn Digital Academy: Meets standards
-- *Findlay Digital Academy: Meets standards
-- *Goal Digital Academy: Exceeds Standards
-- Great River Connections Academy: F
-- *Greater Ohio Virtual School: Meets standards
-- *Mahoning Unlimited Classroom: Meets standards
-- Ohio Connections Academy, Inc: D
-- Ohio Virtual Academy: D
-- *Quaker Digital Academy: Exceeds standards
-- *TRECA Digital Academy: meets standards
*indicates a school report card graded on dropout and recovery school standards
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