At the beginning of another school year, a story in Saturday’s Journal-World calls attention to a district school that many local residents know little about: the Lawrence Virtual School and the Lawrence Virtual High School. The story also raises some questions and concerns about those schools and looks at how school district leaders are hoping to address some of those issues.
About 1,500 students were enrolled in the two virtual schools last year: 1,165 at LVS, which serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade, and just under 300 students at the virtual high school. The virtual schools originally were envisioned as a way to serve students who had special needs or were being home-schooled. However, they also were an attractive option for students outside the district, which now account for about 90 percent of the schools’ enrollment.
The district receives additional state funding for the schools, but the facilities have lost some of their local connection. The Lawrence district owns and operates LVS, and K-8 classses are taught by Lawrence district employees but the curriculum for the school is purchased from K12 Inc., a for-profit company based in Herndon, Va. The virtual high school has even less local connection. It is wholly owned and operated by K12 Inc., which receives all of the Lawrence district’s state funding allocation for the virtual school students.
For the rest of the article, go to Editorial: Virtual schools