Macon County Schools will continue to offer interested students in grades K-8 an all-virtual learning experience in the 2021-22 school year regardless of how COVID-19 restrictions pan out over the next few months.
STEM coordinator Jennifer Love proposed continuing the program to the Macon County Board of Education during their monthly meeting last week. Love said a few families in the school system have actually preferred online classes and would be interested in continuing with the format even when the pandemic is over. The application-only virtual academy of next year would differ from this year’s experiment in a few ways, perhaps most notably by excluding students in high schools, where administrators have said they’d prefer to evaluate students’ needs on a case-by-case basis.
The new virtual academy would also include comprehensive daily schedules, a cameras-on policy, stronger attendance policies and other modifications that will make virtual learning more like in-person learning.
“Virtual academy this year was a necessity based on the COVID-19 pandemic,” Love said. “We are much better prepared now than we were last year.”
The school board members agreed unanimously that offering the online option again next year would be a good idea. Some families left Macon County Schools entirely in 2020 in favor of smaller, more flexible options like homeschool and private tutoring, so a more carefully constructed virtual option could win some of them back. Superintendent Chris Baldwin said if the money is available, he would like to stop tasking teachers with teaching in-person and online and hire a dedicated virtual staff.
“This is all contingent on CARES Act funding and also what the committee decides is important for the use of that allocation of $4.6 million,” Baldwin said. “It’s our goal to use that fund to provide completely virtual teachers if possible. We’ve got to look at how many kids sign up for the school, how much the committee decides to budget for the virtual academy and so forth.”
Online learning has gotten a bad reputation over the past year because of the limitations it puts on students’ interactions with their instructors, not to mention their peers. However, some students have actually thrived in a digital space because of the flexibility it affords them. Mountain View Intermediate School teacher Denise Shields said while some of her students have had a tough time getting used to school on a computer, others have really
grown because of it, taking initiative with the technology and working with her as necessary.
“Many of my students have adapted to learning in a virtual environment,” Shields said. “They have developed skills such as organization, self-discipline, time management and self-advocacy. I feel we have been successful at building relationships with each other.”
Some parents also said the less rigid requirements of virtual learning have been a benefit during the pandemic and haven’t resulted in a drop in their children’s education quality.
Toni Johnson, mother of a sixth grader and a second grader, said her children learned digitally this year for the sake of high-risk family members, but she worried if they would get the one-on-one attention they needed. Her concerns were quieted when her sons’ teachers kept up with all of their questions in a timely manner.
“I feel that virtual academy is a wonderful option for any family who may be considering it,” Johnson said. “My biggest concern I had at the beginning was ‘would my child get the one-on-one time they might need?’. I quickly realized that when we came across anything that was difficult or hard for them to understand, their teachers – all of them – always met with them.”
Granted, the virtual academy still won’t be an ideal option for every student. Families will be required to have reliable internet at home and parents will still need to play a more active role in supervising their child’s education. Johnson actually said she plans on sending her kids to school again next year so that they can see more of their friends, while Adrian Holt, another Mountain View parent, said as much as she has enjoyed the option, her family has a few advantages that make it easier.
“My family has a setting that is easily conducive to virtual education,” Holt said. “Not only do we have highly reliable internet access, but I also work from a home office, which allows me to be very present during the school day to offer additional supervision and academic support. I feel that virtual learning has been a great alternative for us. … virtual education isn’t for everyone.”
At a time when educators are highly concerned about children falling behind in their studies due to the pandemic, many students and families view anything that facilitates their learning as a bright idea – even if it just means lightening their homework load.
“In virtual learning you can work at your own pace, which sometimes means you can get done earlier and don’t have to come home with homework,” eighth grader Lily Holt said. “Overall, I really enjoyed it.”
For more information on next year’s virtual learning plan, go online to macon.k12.nc.us and choose “Macon Virtual Academy” under the “Our Schools” tab.