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State overrules Volusia County School Board, OKs virtual charter school

May 13, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

DAYTONA BEACH — A virtual charter school was given the green light by the state to start operating in Volusia and other area counties.

The state Board of Education overturned the Volusia County School Board’s decision to deny the application last fall of the Central Florida Virtual Board and the Florida Virtual Academy.

The School Board had several concerns with the application, including the school’s governance and lack of oversight, its curriculum and financial plan. The Charter School Appeal Commission in February supported denying the application. The Central Florida Virtual Board and Florida Virtual Academy appealed to the state, which decided this past week to overturn the decision as well as decisions by school boards in other area counties for various charter and virtual charter school companies.

Charter schools are public schools operated by private groups under contracts with local school boards.

Volusia County School Board attorney Ted Doran said the board at its May 22 meeting will discuss the state’s decision. He said the board can either comply with the ruling for the online school, which wants to open as soon as possible, or appeal the decision to the 5th District Court of Appeal.

Doran said Friday the “likely next step” will be to appeal the case as has been done recently with school boards in Duval and Seminole counties. No decision as been made in those cases.

Mary Bennett, a retired Volusia educator, recently resigned as a member and chairwoman of the Central Florida Virtual Charter School Board because of personal health issues not allowing her the time to serve. But she said she is “glad to see the state board overturn the denials and give them a chance to start up and give the children another option for education.”

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Lighthouse Project: Our Future, Our Choices: Education a virtual certainty of change

April 29, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Brooke Gerber was a 10-year-old fifth-grader at Seacrest Country Day School when she predicted that schools would become a thing of the past.

“I am guessing there is not going to be a school, just these things at home — a virtual school room,” she said in 2012. “So all of the students in a grade will have different electronics. There will be one school and everyone will go to it from their houses.”

A virtual school district might have sounded far off in 2012, but as education officials tried to imagine what 2023 would be like, anything was possible.

Kamela Patton, interviewed by the Daily News in 2012 as Collier County School District superintendent, said Brooke’s vision for the future wouldn’t be that far off.

“We were building like crazy in 2002. Ten years later, to think we wouldn’t be building schools would be hard to imagine, but here we are,” she said in 2012. “I think virtual education will have a big hand in education in the future. Education will be beyond the four walls. Where traditionally, we would be within the four walls, if we are not outside the four walls, I think we will be behind.”

Patton foresaw a move to Common Core standards, where the nation assessed students in the same way, instead of 50 versions of assessments as there were in 2012.

“It is hard to compare Florida to everybody when Florida is the only state with a (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test),” she said in 2012. “We as a country have to move forward together and not as 50 separate states.”

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St. Johns County students do well at state science & engineering fair

April 15, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

Several St. Johns County students earned awards at the 57th annual State Science and Engineering Fair of Florida from April 3-5 in Lakeland.

They will be recognized at the county School Board meeting May 15.

Seven students received awards in the Senior Division. Caroline Snowden of Ponte Vedra High School (PVHS) won first place in the Medicine and Health division for her project: “The Association Between Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma and Psoriasis: Examining a Common Biology of Hyperlymphoproliferative Disorders.”

She received $150 in cash awards and was nominated to receive a $10,000 scholarship per year from the Florida Institute of Technology.

Joseph W. Paul III of PVHS placed second in the same category with his project: “Depletion of pgrn-1 Induces Cleavage of Exogenous Human TAR DNA Binding Protein-43 in C Elegans.”

He will also represent St. Johns County at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh, Pa., from May 13-18.

Maya Goldman from PVHS placed third in the Environmental Sciences division.

Kurt Hennigar from St. Johns Virtual School was entered in the Computer Science division and received $250 from the Robert and Judy Kryger Family, a $100 Savings Bond and a Silver Medallion for Excellence from the United States Army.

Alexa Burch from PVHS received an honorable mention and $100 from the American Society of Civil Engineers, Florida Section.

David DiMare from Pedro Menendez High School received recognition and $250 from the American Society of Civil Engineers, Florida Section.

Lucinda Ford from PVHS received recognition in the Biochemistry division.

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WinFord High School Offers Early Admission to 750 Students

April 9, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

The students were selected from 3,369 students who applied for online high school diploma at WinFord through the set criteria for enrollment. The number of early applicants, compared to last year, has increased by 37 percent, which is a record for WinFord High School.
“WinFord High School attracts an exceptional number of highly competent and deserving high school students and we are privileged by the interest and trust students have shown in WinFord,” said Russell Hantz, dean at WinFord High School.

He went on to say that students have become smarter and wanted to plan their schedule ahead of time and we encourage them to do that. WinFord High School congratulated all successful students by email and short text messages.

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Former FL Gov. Jeb Bush: Fully uanleashed, virtual education can transform

April 7, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

The explosion of digital technology over the past few decades has redefined the way we live, work and play. Imagine if its potential were fully unleashed in schools.

More than 14 years ago, Florida recognized the value of using technology to bring quality, customized education and established the nation’s first online school. The Sunshine State pioneered the digital-learning movement and has made strides using these valuable new tools to provide students with a personalized high-quality education. Currently, Florida Virtual School serves more than 150,000 full- and part-time students, and last year, lawmakers passed a law allowing virtual charter schools.

But implementing technology into public education can’t end there. As digital tools continue to advance, Florida has even more opportunities to enhance student learning, extend the reach of great teachers and promote accountability. We need to transform current education models and use available technology to maximize our teachers’ skills and capitalize on our students’ interests and capabilities.

Digital learning can transform education from a factory-style system into a personalized, achievement-based system. Its three basic components emphasize how these revolutionary tools can bring education into the digital age where learning is customized to prepare every student with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college and challenging careers.

First, digital learning transforms the delivery system. Digital learning does not change what students learn; it changes how they learn. Content remains the same, but how the material is presented, the pace at which students advance, and how understanding is assessed changes. Through today’s innovative tools, we can use interactive and adaptive software to capture student learning data in real-time, equipping teachers to immediately identify where students are excelling and struggling.

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Duval, state at odds over ‘virtual’ charter school

March 31, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

The charter wants to open a kindergarten through ninth grade web-based school, named Florida Virtual Academy at Duval County, with an initial enrollment of 620 students.

That decision overruled both the local board and state Charter School Appeal Commission. The School Board could decide today whether to appeal to Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeal.

The school system said the charter’s application failed 12 of the 19 sections; 15 sections must be met to pass. In addition, the charter’s representatives failed to attend any workshops offered by the district to help charter school applicants.

Duval’s denial was upheld by the Charter School Appeal Commission, which recommended to the state board that it also deny the application.

The state board, however, said it would be unfair to penalize virtual charter schools because Florida’s charter application process doesn’t accommodate their special needs.

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Florida Virtual School Nation’s Top Online Course Provider

March 24, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

The Florida Virtual School remains the largest provider of online courses in the country, according to a new report fromEvergreen Education Group.

Students enrolled in nearly 260,000 courses through the school in the 2010–2011 school year.

Florida trails other states in the number of students enrolled full-time in online programs, but a recently approved bill that expands full-time enrollment could raise those numbers. In addition, 56 school districts operate online programs offering full-time and part-time instruction.

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Fallacies about teachers

March 18, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

According to a report in Florida Today, the Florida Legislature, supported by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), plans on portraying teachers as “overcompensated underachievers” in an apparent effort to continue dismantling Florida’s public school system, replacing it with corporate-run, for-profit, public charter/virtual schools.

Another report, co-sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute, concludes teachers are overpaid, underworked, not as smart and receive better benefits at lower cost than nonpublic employees.

Malarkey! I’ll use personal career experience to debunk this travesty of intelligent reasoning.

First, a brief biography. I have an electrical-engineering degree and worked in private industry for 24 years. I have been a teacher for seven years, a union member since day one and a part of Marion Education Association’s leadership for six of those seven years.

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Examining the Florida Virtual School

March 17, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

As the nation’s oldest and largest state virtual educator, the Florida Virtual School is often held up as a model for similar state-backed endeavors to follow when crafting a funding system and putting e-school accountability measures in place.

But at the same time, this major symbol of the virtual education movement is facing increasing scrutiny about its effectiveness as the popularity of online education has expanded in Florida and the country. Some observers of the field want more proof that the FLVS model leads to academic success for students.

Established in 1997 as a state sponsored e-school, and also designated as a school district, Florida Virtual provides more than 110 courses and grew to nearly 260,000 half-credit enrollments in the last school year. Along the way, its funding model has evolved. The school is paid only when its students successfully complete a course. FLVS receives a portion of the per-pupil funding provided to schools and districts by the state for every half-credit course a student completes. That portion is a bit less than a brick-and-mortar school would receive: a full-time FLVS student is funded at $4,840 by the state versus $6,999 for a traditional student.

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