Virtual Charter Schools Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Amid Close Call, State Board Of Education Renews Focus On School Safety

Some of the state’s public schools are not in compliance with a safety requirement aimed at facilitating emergency response.

In an illustration of the need for such requirements, a school safety officer told the state Board of Education a possible school shooting in Cabell County last week may have been thwarted by a tip.

Tony Smith, an officer with the school safety unit, told the state Board of Education Wednesday the student had a manifesto and a list of students and administrators he planned to kill.

Jason M. Spears, Cabell County prosecuting attorney, confirmed to West Virginia Public Broadcasting that the incident is under investigation, but declined to comment further due to the ongoing nature of the situation, as well as the involvement of a minor.

“We take threats of school shootings, or violence in schools, very seriously and give them our utmost attention,” Spears said.

Yet, Smith told the board that not all districts are in compliance with a law that requires school safety programs.

“We still have some schools that drag your feet on it,” he said. “But we are telling those folks and superintendents, we got to have those. Those have to be up to date, because in an unfortunate incident that we got a hot call on, this stuff has to be up to date.”

Passed in 2019, House Bill 2541, titled the School Access Safety Act, requires county boards of education to implement school safety programs that include placing room numbers on exterior walls or windows of school buildings, and providing local first responders with up-to-date floor plans.

The plans should be provided by Sept. 1. Smith said some schools his team has reviewed have exterior numbers that do not match the room’s actual number inside the school. Numbering is an issue the board has focused on in recent months.

Jonah Adkins, director of the office of pre-K through 12 academic support for the Department of Education told the board in December that state superintendent Michele Blatt had offered to have the numbering and lettering created and delivered to non-compliant schools free of charge.

Board President Paul Hardesty said he wants the names of all schools that have not completed their crisis reports to be published on the board website immediately.

“Any school that does not have enough or think it’s important to comply with this, shame on you,” he said. “And we will expose you for what you are. And if that’s being mean, I’m just mean. I take this very seriously. That’s why school safety is a standing item on the agenda since I took this presidency.”

Smith said tips like the one that alerted officials to the situation at Cabell Midland come from the state’s See Send app, which allows all community members to notify authorities of concerns or report an incident.

“From Jan. 1 2023 to Jan. 1 2024, we had 537 tips,” Smith said. “Fifty-six of those were immediate threats, we have diverted some serious school violence. Thirty-eight of those involve some type of gun threat.”

Other Business

The board approved a statewide waiver of Policy 2340, section 4.8.a., allowing students attending virtual charter public schools to test remotely for the West Virginia General Summative Assessment in grades 3 – 8.

Board member Debra Sullivan was the sole vote against the approval of the waiver. She asked Vaughn Rhudy, director of assessment for the state Department of Education, why students of virtual charter schools could not go to a local brick and mortar to take their assessments as do students attending virtual programs administered directly by the state or county.

“That would be something that the charter schools would have to arrange with the counties and I think last year, what the virtual public charter schools did, because that provision wasn’t in state law last year,” Rhudy said. “I don’t know if they reached out to county schools to try to do that. I think that we’ve heard reports that some county schools were reluctant to do that to allow those students to come into their schools.”

Sullivan said it appeared that the waiver would give students of the virtual charter schools a privilege not afforded to other students.

“Even though we have all these virtual students across the state, in various iterations, a subset of them is being told that you can stay at home,” she said.

Sullivan also expressed concern that virtual students were being deprived of one of their few opportunities to have an in-person interaction with instructors and other students.

“Having children appear once a year to come in in person and take a test and see somebody’s face to face, it seems to me that that’s an important thing,” she said. “It’s good to have eyes on kids…It shouldn’t be considered a burden to bring kids in to be tested on site. “It’s really an opportunity for teachers to get to know these kids, because they don’t have that. And with everything being virtual, there’s a lack of connection.”

The waiver takes effect this spring and will utilize the Cambium Assessment Remote Testing/Proctoring tool. The school, proctors, parents and students are required to agree to all state requirements. The waiver does not apply to the West Virginia Alternate Summative Assessment, the English Language Proficiency Assessment-21 (ELPA) or the SAT School Day.

West Virginia Joining 42 Other States That Offer Charter Schools

West Virginia is now the 42nd state to introduce public charter schools as an educational choice for parents and students. A new state law allows for the creation of 10 charter schools over the next three years. That can include two virtual charter schools. A state authorizing board is reviewing seven applications that are required to follow the same rules and regulations that public schools do, but charters can offer more flexibility to adapt and adjust learning approaches.

In some states like Colorado, Michigan, North Carolina and California more than 10 percent of students now attend charter schools. The educational reform movement got its start 30 years ago in Minnesota and in the past three decades, charters have created an us-and-them divide.

Despite their popularity and expansion, some people oppose charter schools. They say charters drain students and resources from traditional public schools. When students attend a charter program, state funding moves with them. We’ll hear from students, parents, teachers and leaders about West Virginia’s decision to bring in charters — and a lawsuit that claims the plan is unconstitutional.

For this episode, Us & Them host Trey Kay speaks with West Virginia State Senator Patricia Rucker, who championed the landmark legislation to permit charter schools in the Mountain State. Kay also checks in with people involved in the charter debate on the national level. He speaks with Joe Nathan, who helped write the nation’s first charter public school law and Diane Ravitch, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education in President George H. W. Bush’s Administration. Ravitch was once a supporter of charters, but is now one of the nation’s most outspoken opponents.

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the CRC Foundation and the West Virginia Humanities Council.

Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond. You also can listen to Us & Them on WVPB Radio — tune in tonight, Oct. 28, at 8 p.m., or listen to the encore presentation on Saturday, Oct. 28, at 3 p.m.

Senate Education Chair Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, speaks during a Senate floor session on March 25, 2021. Rucker was a champion of West Virginia’s new charter school law.

Diane Ravitch is a former assistant secretary of education. She is one of the leading opponents of charter schools nationally.

Since 1970, Joe Nathan has worked with traditional and chartered public schools as a teacher, administrator, parent, PTA president and researcher. Nathan helped write the nation’s first charter school law and Minnesota’s law.

Charter School Board Reviewing 7 New School Applications, Seeking Executive Director

The West Virginia Professional Charter School Board is reviewing seven applications for charter schools in the state. The board met Thursday over Zoom to discuss the applications.

Adam Kissel, chairman of the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board, said he’s excited about the “innovative ideas” he’s seen so far from the seven applicants. He said he hopes the board will make their determinations regarding all seven proposals by Nov. 10.

The board is also still searching for an executive director. At least six people have expressed interest so far.

The state’s charter school law allows up to 10 brick-and-mortar charters to be established within a three-year period. The law also permits the creation of virtual charter schools.

Last week, a lawsuit was filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court challenging the constitutionality of the state’s charter law. The suit says the law allows charter schools to open without approval from local voters.

The West Virginia Professional Charter School Board acts as an authorizer for charter schools in the state — or an entity that has the power to approve or deny the creation of a charter. The board is mostly independent but must report to the West Virginia Board of Education regarding student outcomes or achievement.

Previously, the state’s charter school law required proposals for charters to go through a local county board of education.

There are currently no charter schools in the state.

Researcher: Making Virtual Learning Successful Requires Coordination Across A School System

In our latest installment of our summer education series, “Closing the COVID Gap,” we explore the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on broadband needs and virtual schooling.

Many pockets of West Virginia still do not have reliable internet access in homes, yet thousands of school children last year were forced into remote and virtual learning.

Additionally, West Virginia lawmakers approved a bill this past session that allows the creation of virtual charter schools in the state.

Education reporter Liz McCormick spoke with Chris Harrington, director of Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute at Michigan Virtual School, who has studied virtual learning for ten years, to get some perspective on ways to make it successful in West Virginia — and the importance of reliable internet access.

Michigan Virtual School is a nonprofit that was launched in 1999. According to its website, the program is not a school itself, rather it provides a variety of online course options for students who may not have access to a particular subject of interest at their school. The program also offers professional development for educators in Michigan and globally.

The organization’s research institute studies blended and online learning throughout Michigan, the nation and internationally to incorporate a global perspective.

Extended: Making Virtual Learning Successful Requires Coordination Across A School System

This transcript from the original broadcast has been lightly edited for clarity.

LIZ MCCORMICK: The coronavirus pandemic came out of nowhere, and students and teachers were thrown into virtual settings. What makes a good virtual schooling model?

CHRIS HARRINGTON: For schools and districts to do this right, there really needs to be a lot of thought and strategic design put into the planning of the program, and then the actual implementation of the program. Technology is going to be a foundational piece of that. Then that means computing devices. Also internet access — whether it’s making sure that there’s enough internet access in a school or district if students are engaging in online courses, on-site, in the school, or certainly from home. So having those technology foundational components is really important.

But then also, what comes right off the heels of that is, how a teacher teaches in a virtual environment is also very different. How you communicate with kids is different. How you provide feedback for students is different. How you create community in a virtual classroom is different. And it’s not something that is very intuitive for a novice teacher or for someone who is new to teaching in the virtual environment. And that certainly doesn’t come naturally, when we’re thrown into it like we were.

There needs to be some time to grow teachers’ skills in teaching in a digital learning environment, and make sure the technology is there, the instructional design built into the development of your digital content, and then of course, your professional development to grow teachers in their skills of teaching. In a virtual course, those are the critical components, in my opinion.

MCCORMICK: How important is it to have a supportive home system for these children? How important is that component to having an effective virtual schooling model?

HARRINGTON: You hit the nail right on the head there. That is critical, because every home situation is different. I’ve led multiple virtual learning programs serving as a director for schools and districts in the state of Pennsylvania. One of my foundational components of success — for any student — was engaging the family, and working with the family, and setting up the right learning environment at home, [to ensure] they knew how to do this, and they knew how to support their child. Because that’s not something that all adults are able to just know without being given some guidance from the school.

MCCORMICK: What sort of issues did you find the pandemic exposed in the country, when it comes to virtual schooling and the needs of virtual school? What did we learn?

HARRINGTON: One of the things that we knew was a problem and a concern was equity of access to technology. We knew it existed before the pandemic, but boy, when everybody was pushed to be learning virtually and remotely, that was certainly highlighted and became a very severe pain-point for a lot of schools and districts who are suffering from that inequity.

I think some of the other concerns, or some of the other issues that were really brought to the forefront, was that there were a lot of schools and districts who were using technology in a supplemental way only, in some cases. Some schools were just dabbling in technology. They had the technology, but there wasn’t a real formal plan and structure around how we’re really going to leverage technology to deliver the benefits that it could promise. And as I mentioned before, it’s the content and that cohesive approach to developing course content, but then also all the pedagogical skills to be able to do that. That was certainly the biggest hurdle that I think we ran into.

I think this is why there was so much stress, you know, in the homes of families. But then also in teachers’ virtual classrooms and also with the administrators, because this education just wasn’t delivering what we really hoped it could be delivering during this time. And I can tell you right now, that is where schools and districts are focusing on moving forward.

MCCORMICK: Chris, going back to some of those critical needs that you touched on when it comes to having a successful virtual model. West Virginia, and many rural states, have struggled with providing adequate and reliable broadband internet.

This past year, in an effort to help those kids and families stay connected for school, West Virginia officials established something called Kids Connect, where they made more than 1,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, and they spread them out all over the state, so that if a family didn’t have internet at home, they could at least drive to one of these hotspots so that kids could turn in their homework. That’s not ideal, and I wonder, as a researcher, what needs to happen going forward in rural places like West Virginia? What needs to happen to improve access to this utility?

HARRINGTON: You mentioned the term utility. We get heating to people’s homes, we get electricity in people’s homes, we get water to people’s homes, or if we don’t have pipe water, there’s water supplies available somehow, someway. We have ways of getting these other utilities to homes. But how do we do it for internet access?

If there were conversations between telecom providers and state officials, and the state Department of Education, and include your state chambers of commerce, things like that, and identify what are the standards of access that are needed. And then prioritize funding and accountability, expectations to make sure that the work actually gets done. It takes a sustained effort.

I think one of the things that we probably have examples of in every state is when we really want to get something done, we can get it done. But I think it’s going to take collaboration. It’s not just going to be one telecom provider, it’s not just going to be one grant coming from the state that incentivizes to a certain extent.

I think it has to be a whole systemic analysis of what do we really need for business? Commercial purposes? And also educational purposes? And how do we actually get it there and then actually put the process in place and get the funding and the human resources aligned to be able to make it a reality.

This episode of “Closing the COVID Gap” originally aired on West Virginia Morning on July 28, 2021.