Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/55384
VIRTUAL SCHOOLS STILL NEED REAL TEACHERS AND STRUCTURE THE NOON BELL RINGS at Cyber High School in Lodi, but all is eerily quiet on campus. There is no laughter or yelling in the courtyard; the tables and chairs stand empty, as if perpetu- ally waiting for students to sit down and eat lunch. Some of the school's students are working at home, while others haven't even started their "school day" yet and will hunker down with a computer this evening. Students may work at their own pace and in different areas, but they still need help from teachers like Damon Auchard, a Lodi Education Association (LEA) member, who sees students at the school on a regular basis — and communicates with them online — to make sure they are up to speed. Gabriel Ayala, 17, drops by for a one-on-one meeting with Auchard, then sits alone in the computer lab completing a virtual lesson. The serene environment appeals to Ayala, who found regular school distracting. Damon Auchard helps Gabriel Ayala work on an online class at Cyber High in Lodi. LEA PRESIDENT JEFF JOHNSTON SAYS THE DISTRICT COULD HAVE TRIED TO "OUTSOURCE" ONLINE TEACHERS, BUT INSTEAD CHOSE FROM EXISTING TEACHERS. Jeff Johnston "It was harder for me to concentrate before," he relates. "I do miss the social life of high school, but cyber school works well for me." His father, Gabe Ayala, says he appreciates being "in the loop" now that his son is taking online classes. Instead of calling teachers to find out Gabriel's progress, he can log in to the system and make sure his son is doing assignments and passing his tests. And his teacher sends e-mails with updates. Lodi Unified School District opened Cyber High School last year, along with a Virtual Academy for K-8 students. Both schools use PLANNING IS IMPORTANT Learn from one district's mistakes In Los Angeles Unified School District, a virtual "school within a school" at City of Angels High School has been a "catastrophe" from the beginning, says Jeff Pott, a member of United Teachers Los Angeles and a teacher of non-virtual classes at the school site, who serves as site rep. "It opened without planning," says Pott. "It was rolled out with curriculum undeveloped. Teachers were untrained, and students had to be recruited. We started with eight teachers, and now we are down to two. We've never had more than 25 students enrolled, which makes one hell of a student-to-teacher ratio. Kids were unsuper- vised, and there was no way to compel them to come in or check in online, so by and large they didn't. Large num- bers of students failed." curriculum from private companies and have teachers who monitor student progress and offer individualized instruction as needed. It was a big step for the rural district, which now has cyber students enrolled from several outlying areas. LEA president Jeff Johnston says the district could have tried to "outsource" online teachers, but instead chose from existing teachers. He appreciates that LEA members in this agricultural community are on the cutting edge of technology. Cyber High may be quiet, but it's an excit- ing place to work, says Auchard. Most stu- dents need "credit recovery" to graduate on time, and the school has a 94 percent pass- ing rate in online courses. There are very few behavior problems. "I love the challenge of motivating students who have not been successful in traditional educational settings," says Auchard. "Kids need to have educational options, and this serves a tiny percentage of the student body where traditional high school didn't work." Auchard does more hands-on teaching than he expected, because students don't always understand the lessons. At first, he assumed students would be working independently, but he soon realized that one-on-one instruc- tion was essential. The same is true in the Fresno Unified School District (FUSD), where educators dis- covered that students "working at home" sometimes weren't working at all. After a disastrous fall 2010 session in which a large percentage of students who were assigned Tom Nixon work at home failed their courses, FUSD decided that students who were enrolled in virtual courses needed to show up to a real class- room every day to be successful. Students can only take one online course at a time. "Being supervised and having a credentialed teacher in the class- room has been the key component to success," says Tom Nixon, a member of the Fresno Teachers Association (FTA) who runs the online learning program for the district. "Kids do get stuck, and this way teachers can provide support where necessary." Once high school students began working in real classrooms in a "blended" program that combined virtual and in-person instruction, the rate of course completion "shot through the roof," says Nixon. Class size is limited to 25 students, who sit side by side in a computer lab taking different courses. "You don't have to stand up front and lecture; it's a whole different vibe," says Tim Carey, an FTA mem- ber who supervises an online learning class. "I've only had to discipline one student this year. And I can 16 California Educator / February 2012