Creating and Growing a Successful Online School in Urban America

Purpose & objective

Emerging from the pandemic, many districts who previously did not offer online instruction, or only offered it in upper grades or for credit recovery, decided to make the move to offer sustainable online options for families beyond pandemic needs. Both of our districts are smaller, K-8 districts, serving student populations who are from diverse backgrounds and are primarily low-income. Programs that existed in the region prior to the
pandemic were designed mostly as asynchronous, self-paced programs, but we know that we need to rely on live instruction models to maximize engaged academics and social emotional interaction for our students and families. We carefully mix synchronous with asynchronous times throughout the school day to interact directly with students, but also give them reasonable breaks from screen time. Establishing technology and Internet access, hiring and training exceptional teaching staff, and creating schedules and designing rigorous curricular content while addressing learning gaps, our online schools work through many challenges in order to create equitable learning opportunities for diverse, low-income, urban populations. We overhauled our approaches over the past 3 years, redesigning master schedules, vetting and adopting new curriculum, engaging in professional development for ourselves and our staff, and integrating a variety of edtech tools and platforms to enhance teaching and learning. While many online elementary public schools in our area have closed, we have sustained our programs. Participants who are leading virtual programs will learn from our experiences, in order to apply “what works” to their online learning environments.

Outline

-District demographic background (10 minutes)
-Lessons learned during the 2020-2021 school year (10 minutes)
-Creation of new online schools, and the successes and challenges over the first 3 years of leading online schools (30 minutes)
-Q&A (10 minutes)

During presenter talk, Google Slides presentation will be shown, and attendees will have access to the presentation, with links embedded for resources we have found helpful.

Supporting research

-NSQOL Standards (nsqol.org), with the NSQOL and Danielson crosswalk (Michigan Virtual)
-Distance Learning Playbook (Douglas B. Fisher, John Hattie, and Nancy Frey)
-National Virtual Teachers’ Association (paid certification program, and free webinars; virtualteacherassociation.org)
-Resources from virtual school panels and sessions at ISTE Live 2022 and 2023