The Critical Path to Starting Your Own
Virtual School
STARTING YOUR VIRTUAL SCHOOL
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Section
Page
CURRENT TRENDS IN VIRTUAL SCHOOLING ....................................................................................... 2
THE CRITICAL PATH TO STARTING AN ONLINE OR BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM ....................... 4
Define the nature of your desired program ................................................................................ 4
What are my state’s laws governing online learning? ............................................................... 5
Where will funding come from? .................................................................................................. 6
Setting goals for your virtual program ........................................................................................ 7
Implementation: a review of the Four Focus Areas ................................................................... 7
Spotlight on Learning Objects: Connections Learning Lab Investigator (Rocks and
Minerals) ................................................................................................................... 8
A PARTNER WITH PROVEN SUCCESS IN BLENDED LEARNING ......................................................... 11
Why choose Connections Learning?.......................................................................................... 11
Proven Effective .......................................................................................................................... 12
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CURRENT TRENDS IN VIRTUAL SCHOOLING
The national trend toward online learning
programs in K-12 public and private schools has
reached a tipping point. Excitement about various
digital learning implementation options has
produced an air of inevitability in districts large
and small, rural and urban, geographically close or
dispersed—the future of education includes
elements of online and blended learning. Students
and families demand flexibility and individualized learning, and more states are mandating that
districts develop virtual school solutions for their constituents.
This excitement, however, has not made the task of starting a virtual school program less
daunting, just more urgent. Fortunately for administrators charged with creating online
programs, the resources available to implement a virtual school program are becoming more
diverse, and solutions to address any size program are available.
The landscape of virtual schooling is changing constantly, and it helps decision makers to have
in hand a guide to the critical steps in setting up a virtual school program or other online
learning elements in their school or district. Below we will examine the key steps to take when
starting a new virtual school or when enhancing an existing digital learning program.
Macro Trends in Online Learning
In the recent past, activity around online learning has shifted from the state level to the district
or school level. More and more, districts, consortia of districts, schools, and even teachers are
finding that they are shouldering the responsibility of developing such programs. There are two
primary reasons:
1. Technology is more accessible and easier to use. Five years ago, starting a virtual
program often required developing your own software or substantially modifying “off
the shelf” software to address your needs. Courses delivered online were simply standand-lecture classroom presentations repurposed and delivered over the internet. Now
online courses are available at all grade levels specifically designed for online delivery
through multi-modal technology platforms and education management systems. These
systems feature customizable back-end reporting that make administration of virtual
programs easier than ever.
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2. It used to be “black and white”—students either attended a brick and mortar classroom
or were enrolled through a statewide or district virtual school. Now there are hybrid,
blended, part-time virtual, and full-time virtual programs, and everything in between.
Virtual school options provide a myriad of benefits:
 A continuum of learning options for each student: Through the availability of full-time
and supplementary online offerings, districts are finding it useful to embrace a portfolio
approach to online and blended learning. This fulfills the need for the kind of universal
access to online and blended learning long promoted by organizations like iNACOL, the
International Association for K-12 Online Learning. Some public school district leaders
are considering multiple full-time online learning options.
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Strategic roles for all teachers: In practice, online and blended learning programs often
develop complementary roles for the in-person and online teachers. In cases where
those roles are defined and coordinated, outcomes have been positively impacted. The
face-to-face teachers’ energetic commitment to “the whole student,” is enhanced by
the data-driven collaboration with their online, subject-focused counterparts. One
important impact of online and blended learning should be that these various aspects of
teacher best practice can be distributed and scaled to maximize student achievement.
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True anytime/anywhere learning: Online and blended learning students have
participated in courses in the learning labs, at home, in the community, and at their
base schools – and now they are asking for mobile access as well. Given the ubiquity of
technology in these young people’s worlds, combined with the continued development
of content and instructional support that can live “in the cloud,” emerging definitions of
blended learning should focus less on the either/or combination of face-to-face and
online and more on the vision of learning blended into all aspects of our lives.
With limited time and resources, district or school administrators need a roadmap to
evaluating, initiating, and implementing a virtual program for their students. You need answers
to questions such as:
 What does an online course look like?
 How do students interact with their teacher?
 What qualifications and training are required of teachers?
 Does online learning really work?
 What state or school district policies are needed to implement online learning?
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THE CRITICAL PATH TO STARTING AN ONLINE OR BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM
Whether your district is establishing a blended program, providing access to a few courses
online, or instituting a full virtual program, the key questions that must be addressed are:
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What is the nature of my program?
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What are the laws governing virtual learning programs in my state?
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What will be the source of funding for the virtual program?
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What educational goals will the program achieve?
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What is the implementation plan across the four areas of content, teaching, technology,
and operations?
Below are answers and recommended resources to help with these questions as you endeavor to
expand your virtual school options. The source of much of the data below and a more detailed analysis
can be found in Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning: A Review of Policy and Practice 2011 published
by the Evergreen Education Group and available at http://kpk12.com/.
Define the nature of your desired program
What type of program should you
create and where does it fall on
the continuum of virtual solutions?
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A full-time virtual program?
A blended program
focusing on credit recovery
for graduating high school
students?
An online summer school
solution?
All of the above?
Review Gregg Vanourek’s
dimensions of online programs to
see 10 different variables that
make up an online or blended
learning offering. It’s critical to
consider each dimension and
clearly define your desired
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outcome. The first consideration should always be “what are my constituents (parents,
administration, legislative bodies) asking for?” Build a program to meet the needs of your
academic community rather than to achieve an ideal or to “check a box.”
These dimensions help you define
the nature of your program delivery,
but you must also consider the
governance, the funding source, and
the reach of your program. These
areas will help you further define
your program. See Table 1: Categories of
Online Programs (source: Keeping Pace,
2011)
There are different types of online
solutions, but many districts are
finding that blended programs are
allowing them to address their
students’ needs more effectively
and to take advantage of the
teaching talent that they already
have. Blended learning programs turn the typical school environment on its head. Rather than
rows of forward-facing desks and teacher lectures, blended programs allow administrators to
consider the advantages of a classroom structure with greater flexibility, a schedule with fewer
constraints, and physical space with more dynamic applications. Although it may seem
counterintuitive, the increase in flexibility actually gives administrators better data to monitor
the academic performance of students in the program. The technology required to drive an
effective blended learning program affords the administrator greater insight into the day -to-day
progress of each student and the overall performance of each instructor.
What are my state’s laws governing online learning?
Every state has different laws governing the nature and implementation of digital learning
programs. The “State Policy Profiles” section of the Keeping Pace 2011 report
(http://kpk12.com/states/) provides the best information about your state’s key programs and
policies.
These laws and policies are constantly changing. Monitor your state’s legislative agenda to find
out when action is pending, or contact your Connections Learning Territory Manager to have
our state-relations team provide a profile of upcoming legislative action in your state.
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Where will funding come from?
The sources of funding for your program may change as your offering evolves and grows. Many
districts and schools just starting out apply for grants and one-time funds to finance a part-time
program. Full-time online charter schools are typically state-funded, but of course require
charter authorization. For full-time programs starting from scratch, a good rule of thumb is that
they will not fiscally break even for 3 to 5 years. How exactly to fund virtual and blended
programs is a difficult question due to the diversity of solutions available for consideration.
According to Keeping Pace,
“Many states with full-time online schools use the same funding methodologies
employed for their brick-and-mortar counterparts, though often with a reduction
applied to online schools, charter schools, or both. While this approach has the benefit
of recognizing online students as part of the larger public school pool, each
methodology has its challenges. For example:
- ADA/ADM: Many states fund schools based on average daily attendance (ADA)
or average daily membership (ADM). Both of these accounting methods assume
a physical head count each day, and thus present challenges to online schools.
ADM and ADA require that online schools demonstrate attendance, often based
on methods that were created for a physical school and don’t take into account
that students may be learning evenings and weekends.
- Count day: Some states (e.g., Nevada and Colorado), have count days in which
per-student funding is generated based on enrollment on one or a minimal
number of days. Count days are especially problematic for online schools
because of high mobility of students between schools. The school that counts
the student on the count day gets the funding—which may be for the entire
year—even if the student leaves for another school after the count day.
- Size-based: A few states, typically those with many small traditional school
districts, fund on something akin to a sliding scale, with funding decreasing on a
per-student basis as the total number of students increases. Economies of scale
exist in the digital world, but not in the same way as physical schools. Reducing
per-student funding as student numbers grow creates a disincentive for growth
in online schools.
A few states have implemented online school funding based on successful completion
instead of on time or a proxy for time.”
The steps to take when starting out with regard to funding are (1) to gain a thorough
understanding of you state’s policies on funding for statewide, multi-district, or in-district
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virtual school programs (see section above), and (2) to review grant opportunities for virtual
school schools through your state board of education. Many states offer multi-year startup
funding for virtual schools.
Setting goals for your virtual program
A critical and often underemphasized step, establishing a dynamic 3 to 5
year plan for your virtual program will give you a measuring tool, a
mission, and speaking points when seeking authorization, approvals, or
funding.
Examples:

Bring 10% of home schooling or virtual schooling students back
into the district

Increase college acceptances by 5% for high school seniors in 5 years

Increase college and career readiness (evaluated by before and after assessments)

Raise math scores by 5% in middle school
Your goals should be aligned with your implementation plan. When you are implementing a
program, your decisions in the four focus areas—content, teachers, technology, and
operations—will impact how well you will achieve your program goals.
Implementation: a review of the Four Focus Areas
Focus Area: Content
Selecting the right curriculum for your virtual program is fundamental in the quality of your
school and the success of your students. Where will your curriculum come from? Will you build
it, buy it, license it, or will it be some mix of all? There are Open Education Resources available,
but they often come with a non-fiscal cost of time (to modify for your use) and frustration.
Your existing curriculum from your brick and mortar schools may not be suitable for the online
environment as it relies so much on the physical presence of a teacher in the classroom. Your
virtual program teachers can develop curriculum for the online environment, but it may not be
the best use of their time.
Fortunately, there are many quality curricular options available, and technology has allowed for
more specific selection of certain elements of instruction for use in your courses. In fact,
“courses” is not the smallest unit of instructional elements now available. Digital learning
objects can be combined together into your existing courses.
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Spotlight on Learning Objects: Connections Learning Lab Investigator (Rocks and Minerals)
Providers of virtual school solutions like
Connections Learning are bringing curriculum
alive with unique, cutting edge instructional
tools. These tools engage students while
reinforcing key concepts and core skills.
Geology takes on a whole new high-tech
experience with Connections Education’s Lab
Investigator: Rocks and Minerals. This tool gives
students a hands-on, forensics style of learning
about rocks and minerals virtually. Using this
tool, teachers can:
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Provide information about usage and
location of given rocks and minerals.
Enable students to manipulate and
magnify the specimens to observe
structure, luster, texture, and color.
Allow students to view streak, fracture,
hardness and more tests in order to
compare the properties of various rocks
and minerals.
Enable students to record observations and export data.
Focus Area: Teaching
Your virtual school teachers will bring the curriculum to life. Ideally, you will find a ready group
of volunteers able to be online teachers or to be site coordinators who provide support to
online teachers. Your best candidates will be tech-savvy, certified, and committed to helping
each of your students succeed.
Online learning affords your teachers the chance to individualize instruction to the student to a
greater degree using technology delivered lessons. The result: engaged students in virtual or
blended learning programs who often outperform their brick and mortar counterparts.
Whether you use your teachers or work with an outside organization, online teachers are
responsible for:
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Integrating state-of-the-art instructional tools and curriculum to engage and instruct.
Developing individualized lesson plans and instruction to each student’s needs.
Providing instruction synchronously or asynchronously.
Tracking each student’s progress and adjusting individual learning plans appropriately.
Providing one-on-one support.
Updating administration regularly on students’ online progress and challenges.
Expecting success and ensuring accountability
Online learning and the technology that delivers it allows for greater accountability for your
students and for your teachers. Online teachers can be evaluated on defined metrics that align
to your program goals and all aspects of the teacher/student relationship can be recorded
within an effective Learning Management System (LMS).
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Student progress
Differentiated instruction
Creativity
Communication skills
Timeliness
Focus Area: Technology
Educators often worry that more online instruction means more chance of downtime–or worse
yet, data loss. A solid technology infrastructure and robust platform, helps to eliminate those
worries aside. Administrators often struggle with the idea of developing “home-grown”
technology solutions versus buying an “off the shelf” solution and modifying it for their
program.
A user-friendly system benefits your school community
When starting out, most administrators choose a bundled program—one that includes the
teacher, the content, and the technology in a single package—to deliver one or a number of
courses. The critical questions to ask at this time:
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Is this system scalable as I grow my program?
Am I going to feature live, synchronous instruction (and how)?
Can the technology talk to my existing district system(s)?
When your virtual school program grows, you will need a more custom configuration to address
the particular needs of your school or district. The technology behind most quality education
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management systems is designed to be invisible to your students and easy to navigate for your
staff so the focus stays on learning. Menus, icons and organizational tools such as planners and
drop-boxes make a learning management system valuable for students, teachers,
administrators, and parents.
If online and blended learning are playing an ever-greater role in your school or district, you
may want your own cutting-edge digital learning platform to deliver content from multiple
sources while capturing all the student performance data you will need. There are a number of
systems that can be custom-designed for K–12 education including Blackboard, Moodle, and
Connexus®. Look for a system that is:
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Provided in an Application Service Provider (ASP) model to eliminate the need for
separate hosting and associated costs.
Highly scalable to allow your school to grow and deploy selected elements as needed.
Virtualized at the hardware layer to maximize user performance.
Designed for integration with legacy computer systems, leveraging your prior
technology investments.
Supported by a team of trained hardware and software specialists to simplify
implementation and daily operations for your staff.
Finally, getting your constituents familiar with your system and involved in its execution is
essential to buy-in and implementation success. Conduct training sessions for users and invite
students to try the technology prior to the start of class. They will familiarize themselves with
the navigation before the learning is really supposed to start.
Focus Area: Operations
Other issues in the development and implementation of a virtual school which
may cause challenges include operational areas like marketing, enrollment
processing, student support, and program evaluation.
Virtual programs often require more communication and “promotion”
than their public brick-and-mortar counterparts—just because you build
it, there is no guarantee “they will come”. Making your student
community aware through live and online information sessions, regular
email communication, a web site, press releases, and other standard “marketing” activities will
help boost interest and enrollment in your program. When you partner with an organization
like Connections Learning, you will often receive marketing support as part of the partnership.
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Enrollment processes may be different for a virtual program and student support services such
as guidance counseling and special education will require a plan for fulfillment. Work with your
partner organization to brainstorm solutions to the processing of enrollment paperwork and
the provision of specialized student services.
Virtual schools inevitably include the gathering and dissemination of a lot of data. But what is
the plan to use that data and which data is relevant? Establishing a game plan for data
gathering, dashboard reporting, and review of data against goals should be part of the
establishment of your virtual program. Be sure your technology administrator and your
teachers are aware of the data you will use to evaluate program success.
A PARTNER WITH PROVEN SUCCESS IN BLENDED LEARNING
Connections Learning has established itself as an expert and responsive partner in deploying
educationally effective, cost-efficient virtual and blended learning programs.
Through the Connections Learning Model administrators offer an innovative, inspirational, and
individualized virtual and blended learning approach in their schools, districts, or charter
organizations. Connections provides a unique 21st century K–12 education option including the
curriculum, the instructional tools, and expert online teaching staff needed.
Why choose Connections Learning?
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More than 700 public-school tested, standards-aligned K–12 courses
Differentiated instruction and individualized support from certified teachers.
Data-empowered leadership through Connexus®, our education management system
Ongoing professional development designed to help every teacher bring out the best in
every student.
Connections Learning draws upon Connections Academy LLC’s solid decade of experience in
serving students outside the traditional classroom setting. Founded in 2001, Connections
Academy is a leading, fully accredited provider of high-quality, highly accountable virtual
education for students in grades K–12. Connections Academy currently operates 23 virtual
public schools in 22 states, and has nearly 40,000 students enrolled and almost 500,000 courses
delivered in 2010-2011, with over 100,000 students served and 1,000,000 courses delivered in
the past 10 years. All courses meet or exceed state and national standards (including the
Common Core), and the program is accredited by multiple agencies including AdvancED and the
regional accreditors. Additional detail on our curriculum and course offerings by grade level is
provided in the Connections Learning Curriculum Guide available at
www.connectionslearning.com.
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This robust curriculum is integrated into a proprietary education management system
developed specifically for use in K-12 virtual programs. Over the past decade, the Connections
curriculum, platform, and method of online teaching have produced the highest academic
performance of any family of K–12 schools in the country. 1 In January 2011, Connections
Academy became Connections Education with two divisions – Connections Learning and
Connections Academy. The Connections Academy division continues to focus on serving fulltime virtual public schools, while Connections Education brings this accumulated expertise in
online teaching and learning to school districts around the nation.
Proven Effective
Only Connections Learning programs offer online courses that have all been “public schooltested” and a model that has demonstrated success in school districts and Infusion Labs around
the country. Our online program works, and we have the state standardized test scores to
prove it. Connections Academy schools regularly meet or exceed state benchmarks in core
subjects, and Advanced Placement® students using the Connections program outscore the
national average on the AP ® test. Our program also gets top marks in user satisfaction: more
than 96% of parents agree that our curriculum is high quality, and 92% say their students agree
they are making good academic progress at their Connections schools.
To find out more about a partnership with Connections Learning, contact us at (888) 440-2890
or visit us at www.connectionslearning.com.
1
Based on the percentage of schools operated making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP); state report card ratings; and the overall percentage of
enrolled students in the program rated as proficient or above on state standardized tests.
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