Rogers School District exploring online education

ROGERS -- School officials are exploring launching an online program for high school students next year.

Administrators will survey students within the next few weeks to gauge how many are interested in such a program. Cris Carter, chief information officer, told the School Board at its meeting Tuesday officials have done extensive research on options for implementing a virtual school.

New staff members

Roger Hill, the Rogers School District’s assistant superintendent for human resources, reported to the School Board on Tuesday the district hired 103 people for certified positions for this school year. The district has been trying to hire more teachers who are minorities; this year’s new teachers include nine Hispanics, one more than the district hired last year, Hill said. The district also filled 11 administrative positions, nine of which were filled through internal transfers. “We feel that’s a positive sign in terms of growing our new leaders within the district,” Hill said.

Source: Staff report

Robert Moore, assistant superintendent for secondary curriculum and instruction, is in charge of working with different virtual school providers to understand those options.

"We definitely believe this is going to be a big part of education in the future," said Superintendent Janie Darr.

The state Board of Education last week gave the School District a boost in its move toward online education.

The board granted the district a waiver from a rule that defines a unit of credit as one given for a course which meets for 120 hours; the same rule also requires a minimum of six hours of instruction per day or 30 hours per week.

The district made its request under a new law allowing school districts to apply for the kinds of legal waivers granted to charter schools in those districts. Arkansas Arts Academy is the only charter school in the Rogers School District.

"Arkansas Arts Academy has a long list of waivers," Moore said. "We looked through (the list) to see if there were any we would want. There was only one waiver we were interested in, for clock hours and instructional day."

The waiver will allow students to master content virtually at their own pace and provide them the flexibility needed to take additional career preparation courses, participate in internships or take other courses off campus, according to a district document about the waiver request.

Digital learning "naturally lends itself to classes finishing sooner," Moore said.

The waiver granted to Rogers is good for five years, enough time to develop a good virtual school, Darr said.

Eventually the district may seek additional approval from the state to set up a school of innovation or a charter school around the online model, Darr said.

"It will be a process, and not a quick process," she said.

Rogers isn't the only Northwest Arkansas district aggressively pursuing online possibilities. The Fayetteville School District plans to seek approval to open an online charter school that initially would serve about 100 students in the fourth through eighth grades. Fayetteville's long-term plan is to make online school available to students in kindergarten through 12th grade by 2019.

Rogers already has dipped into the digital realm with a health class at the high school level. Some of the coursework for the class must be done online, Moore said.

A state law approved in 2013 required all freshmen during the 2014-15 school year to take an online course before they graduate.

As digital learning grows, it could take some of the load off of Rogers' school buildings, Moore said. Darr reported the district began the new school year Monday with 14,875 students, which was 208 more students than were present for the first day of last school year.

NW News on 08/19/2015

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