Virtual Learning Program enters 3rd year with 200 students

St. Mary Parish’s Virtual Learning Program gives nearly 200 students the ability to take junior high and high school classes, including unusual electives, from their computers.
Susan Dupre, St. Mary public schools technology facilitator, said the program, now in its third year, serves both full-time and part-time online students.
“The kids that come into the program full-time are the kids that have some kind of issue attending regular school. Sometimes it’s a physical issue, they have health issues that keep them from attending school on a daily basis … they’re missing so much school because they just can’t physically get there,” Dupre said.
“Sometimes there are social issues, emotional issues, family issues, but most of the kids who come into the Virtual Learning Program as full-time need an option to face-to-face school because it’s not working for them.”
Full-time students have the flexibility of taking their classes during whatever hours fit into their schedules, whether they’re enrolled because of doctor appointments or a budding career in entertainment.
They are the smaller segment of students in the program.
Part-time students attend school face-to-face with teachers, but need to fill a hole in their schedule or they need some type of elective not offered at their schools. These part-time students are the majority in the program, with 147 students each taking one or two courses. Full-timers typically take three or four courses at a time.
Course offerings are varied from upper- and lower-level core curriculum classes like English, math, science and history to electives like fashion design, web design, video game design, criminology, astronomy and more.
In the second year of the program, one of the high schools lost an instructor in a college preparatory class with nine weeks of school left. With no replacement available, the Virtual Learning Program assigned those students to its course, keeping 45 students learning with a virtual instructor instead of on alternate or with a substitute teacher until school ended. This, Dupre said, shaped the program this year, the third year.
This year, Centerville High School is experiencing a teacher shortage and the virtual learning program stepped in to fill the gaps until suitable instructors are found. VLP is providing three courses for the school, Dupre said.
How well does the program work?
“At the end of Year 2, of all the kids that were taking courses that had End-of-Course tests for the state, all of the students passed their EOC tests except for one who also failed the class,” she said, adding that student failed because he had too many other courses and didn’t pay attention to that one.
“So we feel that we did a good job preparing them for the EOC. They’re getting what they needed because they were able to pass those courses,” Dupre said.
For students who are not performing in the virtual school, interventions are laid out, up to and including dismissal from the program.
Cheryl Darce, a full-time online instructor, who teaches most of the program’s business courses, also works as student support. She monitors student activity, reaches out to the student and determines what the problem may be, Dupre said.
Courses are taught by St. Mary Parish teachers or those from surrounding parishes, allowing students to meet with the teacher, if necessary, as well as allowing the school system control over who is teaching the courses. Meanwhile, the state has a suite of virtual classes offered by its Supplemental Course Academy, but only Spanish is being utilized in St. Mary Parish, Dupre said.
St. Mary Parish courses are beta tested by one or two students the semester before they are offered live to all students.
On the horizon are courses in fashion and interior design, computer science courses offering Visual Basic and Java programming as well as digital graphics and flash animation.