Virtual school enrollment ends today

Students may still have a chance to sign up for Missouri's new virtual school after the initial enrollment period ends at 8 a.m. today, the program's state director said.

About 1,900 elementary and high school students had enrolled in the state's new online classes as of late last week, said Dr. Curt Fuchs, director of the Missouri Virtual Instruction Program or MoVIP.

The three-week online application process began May 7, but many Missourians are just now learning of the new program. "I have people calling just about every hour," Fuchs said from his Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education office in Jefferson City.

"We could accommodate about 4,000 students this first year," Fuchs said. Those students would be able to take online classes free of charge.

That's twice as many as originally anticipated, he said. The Missouri Legislature doubled the funding for the program, providing $5.2 million to fund the online classes, Fuchs said.

Initially state education officials thought that they might have more students apply than slots available. In that case, the state envisioned filling the seats through a lottery system.

But Fuchs said it appears a lottery won't be necessary. "It looks like everybody who registers probably will get a state-funded seat," he said. "I am really thrilled I am not going to have to turn anybody away."

The DESE expects the online school will offer some 14,000 semester-long classes starting this fall.

Through late last week, students had signed up for 7,000 classes. In Southeast Missouri, students have signed up for nearly 500 online classes so far, Fuchs said.

No classes are being offered for middle-school students in the coming school year. But Fuchs said the plan is to add middle-school courses in the second year of the online school.

The state has hired two vendors, Northwest Missouri State University of Maryville and Connections Academy of Baltimore, to manage and provide the curriculum, teachers and instructional materials needed to offer the virtual classes.

Northwest Missouri State is handling the online classes for high school students. Connections Academy, a private firm, is in charge of the elementary school classes.

High school courses account for about 60 percent of the online enrollment, Fuchs said.

"I am not surprised by that," he said.

Classes for elementary students require a greater commitment of time from parents, he said. "At the elementary level, that parent is a facilitator," Fuchs said.

To make it work with children of elementary-school age, parents have to be available to work with their children online during the day, he said.

"You really, at the elementary level, can't be a working parent," Fuchs said.

Parents have to sign an agreement for their children to enroll in elementary classes, he said.

Northwest Missouri State will hire teachers from all around the state to teach the online high school courses.

Connections Academy plans to set up an office in Jefferson City and bring in teachers from the Central Missouri area to teach the elementary school classes.

One teacher will be allowed to teach up to 120 students in a single course, Fuchs said.

Some 700 educators applied for the online teaching positions. Most of the teachers will teach full time in the virtual school, Fuchs said. For the online high school classes, part-time teachers will be hired to complement the full-time staff, he said.

The virtual school has drawn a lot of interest from residents of rural Missouri.

Fuchs said he expects a lot of Missouri's home-schooled students will be full-time online students. That would mean taking six courses over the course of a semester, he said.

Fuchs said many homebound students, who are unable to attend schools for medical reasons, are signing up for the virtual classes.

"This is just a perfect solution for them," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123