High school students in Franklin County will have a new educational option this fall as Franklin County Schools will begin a virtual high school that will be based at Vina High School.
The Franklin County Board of Education approved Superintendent Greg Hamilton’s recommendation to start a virtual school option for grades 9-12 that will be available for up to 30 students.
Franklin County’s virtual school will begin with the new school year in August.
The virtual school rollout is the result of an Alabama law passed in 2015 that mandates school systems to create a virtual school option.
In Alabama, Act 2015-89 requires all local boards of education to adopt policies for offering virtual school options to students in grades 9-12. This law aimed to provide students with an online pathway to earn a high school diploma.
When the bill was passed, school systems were given the option of starting their own stand-alone virtual school, or becoming part of ACCESS, a virtual learning program that partnered with the Alabama State Department of Education to provide online learning for students in systems without a stand-alone virtual school.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, though, Hamilton needed a virtual learning program that could handle more than 3,600 students system-wide. That's when a company called APEX Learning stepped up and took on the challenge of a virtual learning platform for an entire school system. Hamilton and the board were pleased with how APEX Learning handled that difficult process.
In July 2021, APEX Learning was acquired by Edmentum.
“If (APEX Learning) cared enough to step up and provide a quality program for all our kids, that's a level of dedication that merits loyalty from Franklin County Schools,” Hamilton said. “We also spoke with ACCESS but Edmentum has enough seats for students with no limitations, so that was a factor too.”
Hamilton said he hopes the system’s virtual school will lower the district’s dropout rate by creating another educational option for students at risk of dropping out or those who don’t come to school because of conflicts. Students will come onto the Vina campus twice each nine weeks with what Hamilton described as a ‘checkup’ to see how they are progressing.
As for Franklin County’s virtual school, there are more questions than answers as the first year of virtual learning is three months from starting.
“There could be 30 students in virtual school this fall or there may be fewer,” Hamilton told board members.
“The best word I can use to describe this is ‘evolving.’ Next year we’ll have up to 30 students wanting to get their diplomas online. The program will be housed at Vina but can become a stand-alone school if we get to 250 students. Lawrence County Schools passed that 250 number this year,” Hamilton added.
Edmentum is a Minnesota based company that partners with K-12 educators in all 50 states and more than 100 countries. According to the company’s website, www.edmentum.com, more than five million students have been served by the company, with more than 6,200 public school districts served in the United States alone.
For more information about enrolling a 9th-12th grade student into Franklin County’s virtual school, call 256-332-1360.
