Wake Schools plans for a Virtual Academy option next year

The Wake County Public School System plans to offer a Virtual Academy again next year, and it likely will look quite a bit different.

On Tuesday, school district officials will present to the school board their plans so far for a virtual learning option for parents and students who would like one. The presentation will occur during the board's 3:30 p.m. work session, prior to the evening meeting. No voting item related to the Virtual Academy is on the evening meeting's agenda.

On Tuesday evening, the board will also hear the district's proposed budget for next year. No proposal was attached to the agenda as of Monday evening, although county officials have discussed maintaining the district's budget. That presentation will also only be an information item.

The state has not required a virtual learning option for next year, as was required this year for the novel coronavirus pandemic, and the district is still considering feedback, potential registration numbers, resource allocation and funding as it plans for the Virtual Academy. Schools with low virtual enrollment may need district-level support to work.

A major difference between the Virtual Academy this year and the expected Virtual Academy next year is that instruction would take place separately from in-person learning.

The presentation states, “The Virtual Academy will be structured to separate virtual instruction and in-person instruction.”

It also wouldn’t be an option for all students.

The district is only planning on a Virtual Academy next year for 4th to 12th grade students.

“The district is exploring the feasibility of virtual programming for Pre K-3 students,” according to the presentation, and the Virtual Academy wouldn’t the available to the Early Colleges, Leadership Academies, Alternative Schools and Crossroads Flex High School.

The district is planning to ask parents to sign up for Virtual Academy later this spring and likely to commit to the whole academic year “to minimize movement.” The sign-up period will last 10 days, and parents could have until early or mid-May to decide.

The district will have a community open house on Virtual Academy before registration ends.

At the beginning of the spring semester, nearly half of the district’s 157,000 students had elected to continue with the Virtual Academy. Since then, schools have reopened to more in-person learning. Parents had until last Thursday to decide if they wanted to change their child’s mode of learning, from in-person to virtual or vice versa, as the district prepares to open all schools to Plan (minimal social distancing) learning beginning this week.

Students would remain with their current schools when they sign up for Virtual Academy, like this year. So school calendars wouldn’t change for those students, except for multi-track, year-round schools. Those schools would be assigned a district-wide track to follow.

The district will have additional centralized support for instructional delivery and students experience, according to the presentation. Canvas, the learning management system, and Google are working together on improvements to the Virtual Academy, as well.

Virtual Academy teachers, families and students will have learning opportunities on using Canvas.