Beech Tree News Network

FRANKFORT—Legislators on the Interim Joint Committee on Education learned about virtual academies during Tuesday’s meeting at the Capitol Annex.

Representatives from the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) and the Kentucky Virtual Academy of the Cloverport Independent School District were on hand to explain how the academy operates and answer questions from legislators.

Sallie Johnson, principal of the academy, said a school with virtual instruction fills a need some students and parents seek. Cloverport is the second largest town in Breckenridge County.

“This is my third year participating in a virtual school, and I love that we have options for students,” she said. “I was a past special education teacher, and what I found is a comprehensive, in-person school is not always the right fit for our children. And it is just exciting that there is this new innovative process for school students to access school through virtual learning.”

Rep. Killian Timoney, R-Nicholasville, said there is no statewide virtual academy now, but they would be well received.

Marty Park, chief digital officer for the Office of Education Technology, said Timoney is correct about the statewide virtual academy, though virtual learning has been offered in schools for several years.

“Virtual options became necessary and expanded through the pandemic. A lot of times our programs in our school districts were designed around an emergency strategy of online virtual learning,” he said. “What we’re talking about today is very much not emergency based design. It’s very much around intentional design for high quality teaching and learning.”

Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, and co-chair of the committee, asked the KDE about the number of districts that design their own program in-house vs. districts that hire a third party contractor.

Park said officials are working through the data this year, and that it’s important to track those numbers as the program matures.

“Most of our school districts across the state of Kentucky, whether it’s in-person learning or online and virtual learning, engage in partnerships with external parties,” he said. “I think what you’re referring to is, what we would call nationally, a managed school approach. Currently today, we only have one school district who’s engaged in the managed school approach.”

Rep. Tina Bojanowski, D-Louisville, said Kentucky doesn’t have a state virtual sponsored program, but with House Bill 563, effectively any virtual school could become statewide. She asked how that impacts Support Education Excellence in Kentucky (SEEK) money. SEEK funds are formula-driven allocations of state funds for local school districts.

Matt Ross, executive adviser for the Office of Finance and Operations, said students become pupils of the district where they’re located. For instance, if a student moved to the Cloverport district, that district would receive the SEEK funds for that student during the next funding cycle.

Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris, asked what percentage of students are learning virtually. West is also co-chair of the committee.

“From fulltime enrollment status, at end of last school year, it was about 1.8%,” Park said. Projections indicate it could be up to 3% in the next five years, he added.

Rep. Emily Callaway, R-Louisville, said she supports virtual academy learning, but also has concerns.

“I do want to emphasize a lot of what my colleagues have said. I think this is a great opportunity,” she said. “It does put back into the hands of parents some different learning environments for their kids. And so I think this is absolutely wonderful, and I appreciate the details. I do also share concerns about safety of the kids and the extracurricular activities.”

The next committee meeting is scheduled Nov. 1 at 11 a.m.