Online schools make gains

About 400 students in kindergarten through 12th grade who live in the Olympia, Tumwater and North Thurston school districts transferred this year to fully online public schools locally or in other districts.

Full-online public schools have become a draw for about 1 percent of South Sound students and their families. The schools, run by private companies, allow students to take on subjects at their own pace and provide instructors to teach subjects to students who previously were home-schooled.

The programs are free to families with a computer and Internet access. Some programs even provide the computer — because the online schools have been funded at the same per-student rate as traditional brick-and-mortar schools since 2005.

The numbers

In North Thurston schools, 208 students this year transferred to other districts to attend full-time online schools, district spokeswoman Courtney Schrieve said. In Tumwater, 92 students — about half of them former home-schoolers — did the same, district spokeswoman Sue Haskin said, though about half of those students were homeschooled and therefore not part of the Tumwater school system before going to an online public school.

In Olympia, 43 students transferred to other districts for online schools — about one-half of 1 percent. The district's own online school, iConnect, enrolled 70 students from Olympia and elsewhere, said district spokesman Peter Rex.

The North Thurston and Tumwater districts both have online classes at their high schools, but neither operates a full-time online school.

Two years ago, Olympia started a fully online school program, called iConnect Academy, out of the Olympia Regional Learning Academy.

Tumwater

Tumwater's high schools offer online courses to their students who need to catch up on credits, but it's not an option for students who want to attend a fully online school, Haskin said.

Haskin said that while district officials have noted the number of students who have transferred to online schools, the district isn't in a rush to create its own fully-online school. Of the 92 students who transferred to a public online school, 13 of them left Tumwater classrooms. Most of the others were home-schooled, she said.

She said district officials recognize that other districts might have something to offer some families.

"We want to help each student find a niche. It's great to retain kids, but if this is working for those kids, then we need to recognize that and help them find a place that they can be successful," she said. "For some students, a traditional classroom setting doesn't seem to fit."

Olympia

IConnect differs from the Washington Virtual Academy (WAVA), Insight School of Washington and iQ Academy, which have been marketed throughout Washington in that iConnect students are required to take their mid-terms and tests in person at the Olympia Regional Learning Academy building at 2001 26th Ave. N.E., administrator Joy Walton said.

That requirement ensures that the student is doing his or her own work, she said.

The program has about 58 students from the Olympia district and 12 others who are from districts from as far away as Yelm and Shelton, she said.

Most of the students are in high school, although the program also is available to younger students, she said.

The program has grown slowly in the past two years through word-of-mouth, but the district plans to publicize it more to its own students, Walton said.

"We started with a handful of students," she said. "I think that as people get to know more about online learning and that we are here, that will continue to increase. We would stop taking students from other districts if we got to a point where we were full. We're just not near that."

She said there are no plans for widespread marketing in other districts.

"Right now, we're working on putting together more information about our program and making it have more of a Web-based presence, so when people are looking into online programs, they can find us," she said. "We won't be going to recruit by any means. The plan is we'll just have a better Web presence and they'll see that this may be an option, but not to go out and actively recruit."

The bottom line

The growth of enrollment in online public schools is affecting some of the smaller districts that were early adopters of the virtual schools. In the three years in which the state has allowed virtual schools to collect the same amount of per-student funding, some smaller districts have seen their virtual enrollment expand faster than their local enrollment.

WAVA — which Steilacoom opened to out-of-district families in 2006 — enrolled 2,233 in kindergarten through eighth grade last year. The Steilacoom district's other schools enrolled 1,817 preschoolers through eighth-graders in those same grade levels.

Insight, a virtual high school operated by the Quillayute Valley school district in Forks, enrolled 1,137 high-schoolers last year, almost doubling the enrollment from the previous year. Forks High School, the district's only brick-and-mortar high school, had 328 students.

That enrollment equals state school money, but many of the students who enroll in virtual schools otherwise would not be in the public education system, administrators say.

"There are students and families out there who are looking for Insight, looking for this kind of a schooling," said Frank Walter, head of school at Insight School. "There are students who are not in school today. There are students who are in school but just not attending. There are students who are in school and attending but are really struggling with it. We want to make sure that people know that this is an opportunity and this is available."

Former home-school student Lindsey Hallmann, 16, in her second year at Insight, said she doesn't know if she'd go to a traditional high school if the online school wasn't an option.

"I like having teachers," she said. "I love my mom, but I don't always like having her as my teacher."

Hallmann's brother decided to enroll in Northwest Christian High School, a private school in Lacey, after attending Insight for a few years, she said.

"He says he likes the interaction more with the students. He likes going to school," she said. "I don't know how I'd feel about it, but I am considering going my senior year just for the experience."

Ace Jarasitis, 9, had attended Garfield Elementary School until second grade, but Ace said he felt like he didn't "conform."

"There was a lot of pressure," said Ace. "I asked my mom what would be an alternative for normal school."

After finding a brochure in the recycling bin, Ace asked his mom to look into Washington Virtual Academy, a public online school operated through the Steilacoom Historical School District in DuPont.

For some families, such as Ace's, it fits perfectly. Able to study at his own pace, Ace, who would have been in fourth grade at Garfield, does sixth-grade-level work in pre-algebra and language arts.

Gina Jarasitis said she hadn't considered home-schooling until her son asked her to look into it.

"I liked the regular school. My husband and I both went to public schools," she said. "But this suits Ace, and it's just wonderful."

The trend

Enrollment at the virtual schools continues to grow. This year, WAVA's enrollment grew nearly 20 percent to 2,673 kindergartners through eighth-graders. Its high school program, based out of the Monroe School District, enrolled 829. Insight enrolled 1,625 students this year, an increase of 42 percent from the previous year.

Online schools have grown rapidly since 2005; about one-half of 1 percent of students throughout the state have enrolled in them, said Martin Mueller, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction's assistant superintendent of operations and support.

"We have some districts that are capitalizing on being one of the first few bringing in these programs," Mueller said. "That's going to reduce, as those districts that are looking into it start to offer those options for themselves."

South Sound High School

Several years ago, North Thurston Public Schools looked into starting an online high school with K12, the company that runs Washington Virtual Academy, so North Thurston students could take online courses. The company, which explored the option with several districts, signed a contract to start a high school at Monroe School District.

Afterward, North Thurston offered online classes at South Sound High School, the district's alternative school, as an option in the regular curriculum.

Those classes also are offered to 25 students each from River Ridge, North Thurston and Timberline high schools, said Marlys Martin, academic adviser at South Sound. Counselors at the other schools can decide participate in the programs and students get the class credit in their regular high school, Martin said.

While a student could complete most of his or her high school courses online, Martin said, there are some requirements, such as the health-and-fitness credit and art credits, that would be difficult to do that way. But the students can complete a 45- to 55-hour course for one semester-long credit at their own pace.

"We've had students do it less than a week," Martin said. "That's a student who says, 'I stayed up till 2 a.m. Saturday.' "

She said there are no immediate plans to create more space in the online programs for students not at South Sound High School, but South Sound's students have demanded enough online learning to justify adding more space.

"I think as the word spreads, it's become more popular," Martin said. "A lot of them like computers. They like being in control of their time. In some cases, they like to go faster."

Venice Buhain covers education for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-754-5445 or vbuhain@theolympian.com.