WVDE | Instructional Technology | Virtual School

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The West Virginia Virtual School was created by the West Virginia Legislature on July 1, 2000. The mission of the Virtual School is to assure consistent, high quality education for the students of West Virginia through courses delivered via technology, promote efficacy and equity in course offerings, and provide options for implementation across the public school system. The Virtual School initiative helps bridge the barriers of time, distance and inequities for all West Virginia students by providing access to resources. Since the first three seventh grade students from Capon Middle School took Geometry in the fall of 2000, demand for virtual courses continues to increase at a rapid pace.

 

News and Views

NCAA Eligibility for Virtual School Courses 10.1.2012

 Attention student, virtual school contact, counselor and parent:  If a student plans to play NCAA Division I sports, please visit the NCAA eligibility high school portal to ensure the online course is an approved NCAA credit. 

 

NCAA Eligibility for Credit Recovery Courses 10.1.2012

Attention student, virtual school contact, counselor and parent:  The NCAA reviews credit recovery occurrences on an individual basis.  For this reason, credit recovery is NOT recommended for any athlete with aspirations to play Division I sports. 

West Virginia Virtual School Protocol adopted 8.10.11

The West Virginia School Protocol was adopted on 8.10.11 to provide clarity to schools that are registering students for West Virginia Virtual School classes.  The protocol was shared with superintendent and principal list-servs.

WVVS Grade Transcripts and Drop Policy

Most WVVS course providers allow a trial period during which students can drop a virtual course without penalty.  The school must report a grade of WNG (Withdrawn No Grade) on the student transcript when the student drops a course on or before 28 days. The school must record a grade of WF (Withdrawn Failing) for a student who drops a course after the 28 day drop date. 

 

The virtual course grade will be sent via email to the school co-teacher/facilitator/mentor.  The co-teacher/facilitator/mentor ensures that student grades for WV Virtual School courses are entered in the WVEIS data system. No changes can be made to the online course grade by local school personnel.

Grades must be recorded as reported by the online instructor following the WV Uniform Grading Policy found in State Board Policy 2515.

 

Tuition for virtual courses is paid by the WV Virtual School with some stipulations. The county incurs no expense for the first ten students in the same course in the same school (e.g., the first ten students in Algebra II) per year.  The county is responsible for providing any textbooks and/or lab materials required by virtual courses.

 

WV Virtual School Spanish Blended Delivery 2012-2013

Many West Virginia schools also use virtual courses when they can’t find highly qualified teachers to teach courses students need. Through the West Virginia Virtual School’s blended Spanish courses, West Virginia virtual teachers provide Spanish instruction to schools that are unable to find a highly qualified world language teacher.

 

In McDowell and Lincoln counties, the only foreign language instruction available at the middle school level comes from the West Virginia Virtual School. The story is similar at many small counties. Students at Braxton County Middle School as well as Geary, Spencer and Walton Middle schools would not have a world language if it were not for the West Virginia Virtual School.

Even in Kanawha County, highly qualified foreign language teachers can be hard to find. Students at Cedar Grove, DuPont and East Bank middle schools receive Spanish instruction through the West Virginia Virtual School. Across the state, 1,024 students at nearly 40 schools in 18 counties now take Spanish through the virtual school that otherwise would not be able to take a world language.

This year, the West Virginia Virtual School partnered with Middlebury Interactive Languages to offer a new competency based curriculum.  Eight highly qualified WV world language (Spanish) instructors deliver the Middlebury Spanish curriculum through WV Learns, our learning platform. As part of the blended delivery, the WV Spanish teachers telephone the classes three times a week and visit the classrooms twice a semester. 

If you have questions about the blended delivery courses, contact Becky Butler (rbutler@access.k12.wv.us) for additional information.

 onTargetWV Credit Recovery continues for 3rd year

The alarming statistics are all too familiar. Another student gives up on school every 29 seconds nationwide, resulting in more than one million high school students who drop out of American high schools every year. Nearly one-third of all public high school students fail to graduate from high school with their class. In West Virginia alone, students failed more than 42,000 courses in 2011-12. 

 

The WV Department of Education is dedicated to reducing dropout rates and increasing graduation rates for students in West Virginia. To this end, the WV Virtual School is using onTargetWV, a program that will allow students to recover credits they need for graduation and help them develop skills and work habits that contribute to their continued academic success. The new onTargetWV program offers rigorous credit recovery courses with additional scaffolding to sustain learning. These courses are engaging, interactive, and provide differentiated instruction to supply the extra support students need to be successful. An highly qualified online instructor grades works, answers questions, and provides individualized instruction as needed.

Additional information about onTargetWV courses may be found on our website.  Contact Gloria Burdette (gkburdet@access.k12.wv.us) for additional information.

Why take Virtual School classes?

West Virginia students, like their peers nationally, are currently taking courses online that are not offered in their local schools.  Some students schedule West Virginia School (WVVS) courses that they are unable to enroll in locally due to scheduling conflicts.  Many schools use WVVS courses when it is impossible to find highly qualified teachers to teach the courses in the local school.

 

Registration

Students and school personnel may review the many courses in the WVVS online catalog. More than 250 core and elective courses are available, including many different AP courses.  If students are interested in taking online courses through the West Virginia Virtual School, the student may request or the school virtual school contact may request the virtual course

 

Local Co-Teacher/Facilitator/Mentor

The school must provide a local school co-teacher, mentor/facilitator who will receive regular reports about student progress and will serve as the student’s first contact for academic problems.    This local co-teacher/facilitator/mentor is key to the student’s success.    The best practice implementation of WVVS courses occur when the online course is placed into the student’s schedule as a daily class period or block of time where the co-teacher/facilitator/mentor works with the student.  If the student is not scheduled into a regular period during the school day, the co-teacher/facilitator/mentor should make weekly contact with the student to ensure that the student is making progress

 

 

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