California Virtual Academies (CAVA) is one of many virtual charter schools that has a business agreement with the curriculum provider K12 Inc. Although all public charter schools are not-for-profit, K12 is for profit. The academy, like most K12 Inc. supplied schools, loans the student textbooks, materials, and a computer so the student can access his/her online lessons.
Curriculum
The primary curriculum, supplied by K12, Inc. was developed following the principles of E.D. Hirsch, Jr., and an advisory group including Secretary of Education William Bennett, setting a foundation of a classic education, wrapped in custom on- and off-line materials and media to address different learning modalities. The original curriculum was designed for use in brick-and-mortar schools, but found quick adoption by the home schooling community, and started being marketed as part of public Charter School agreements that packaged the curriculum with online educational management tools such as immediately scored tests, grade-books, attendance, and progress. While many textbooks are sourced from the large K-12 textbook providers, the K12, Inc., science program, anthologies, and lower level math programs were independently developed. Foreign Language is primarily provided by Middlebury. The assignments are graded either by the computer for the multiple choice questions or by the teacher for the short answer questions, the longer essays or papers, and the laboratory reports. Students can either do the word processing online or can print out the questions and answer them, scan them and submit the scans or doc files into a 'drop box.' Because each student receives their own set of lab equipment and unlike in a conventional classroom, the labs must be completed at home without help and are limited to inexpensive items that are almost completely safe. As the high school years were added, CAVA has also purchased curriculum from other providers. The content is provided on the K12 Online School (OLS) and in the complementary Student Guides, Learning Coach Guides (earlier versions were labelled Teacher Guides), textbooks, CDs, and literature and other written materials. For some high school courses, the teachers are expected to develop their own teaching materials or the student is to buy their own textbooks, as none are provided with the course, or the recommended textbook is not included with the course.
Instruction
Each CAVA student is assigned to a California credentialed homeroom teacher, with nominally 30-35 students. At the lower grades, most of the educational support to the "independent learners", is provided by Learning Coaches (a parent, guardian, or designated responsible adult) who fill roles similar to teacher's aides in the classroom as well as parents helping their children do their assignments at home. The teachers monitor performance, attendance, progress, answer questions, and provide supplemental online lectures. As the students gain reading and self-discipline skills, they become more independent, and the format of the instructional materials is adapted to giving direct feedback to the student rather than through the adult. Course lessons include online reading, sometimes followed by offline textbook work and then the lesson test, also called an assessment. The test consists of an online multiple choice quiz and/or a textbook quiz that has multiple choice and/or short answer questions. Unit assessments typically have an online and offline component. The offline textbook multiple choice and/or short answer questions are answered by the student, the answers are then graded with the teacher guide answer key book by the parent who enters the results into the online test. Significant offline written work is performed by the student following the student workbooks, and on and off-line instructions. The offline work includes verbal discussions for comprehension and practice, writing, grammar, and phonics practice, oral presentations and reading, laboratory experiments, Art, Music, foreign language, math problems and tests, essays, and the more substantial Science, History, Math, English Unit assessments. The online questions are graded by the computer and the test grade is then displayed. Lessons are considered failed if the student does not pass with a mastery score of 80% or better, and lessons and need to be retaught through provided extra practice, review, or support of learning coaches or teachers until student masters the lessons and the unit. CAVA high school courses are varied in how they are structured and presented. Unlike the lower level courses, the high school courses do not provide the parents the instructional materials, teacher guides, solution sets, or rubrics. Some courses provide the entire "textbook" for the semester, while for others, the content including completed tests are hidden. The student is only given access one unit at a time, and the content is again hidden as the end of the quarter or semester. The blocking of advance access was instituted to prevent students from moving ahead of schedule without the teacher or rest of the class being at that point and the teacher being given the opportunity to instruct first. At the high school level, the parent is in a more traditional role of helping their child with their questions and homework at home, and some parents get tutors much as in traditional brick-and mortar schools. The teachers may provide online lectures, or simply go through the calendar, such as the AP Chemistry and AP History courses, as the students are considered truly independent in those courses. More assignments are teacher graded rather than computer graded due to the greater complexity of the courses.
Adminstrative
Each CAVA school follows a board adopted school calendar, which includes 180 instructional days. The Independent Study Master Agreement each student and responsible adult signs follows a standard minimum progress rate to complete each semester long course -- 100% by the end-of the semester, and each year long course--100% by the end of the 180 days. The number of lessons completed each day can be adjusted under the facilitation of a responsible supervising credentialed teacher. At the elementary and middle school levels, students can compact courses, and progress to the next course once the teacher has validated mastery and readiness for the next course. When a student fails to make satisfactory progress, the credentialed teacher assists the student. The student must have completed each core course (Math, English, Science, and Social Studies) to 80% or higher by the last day of school to be considered for continuation in the program. The teachers, students, and parents are required to respond to voice or email requests within 24 hours, ensuring responsive communications. At the elementary through middle school level, the parent records attendance on the OLS of what courses their student worked on each day and how much time they spent. Teacher responsibilities include state required independent study monitoring and reporting. The teacher duties include administering assignments, scheduling conferences, monitoring work, teaching online lessons to students, virtually meeting with the student to go over the lesson, and assessing if the student is meeting state standards for his/her grade level. The parent as "Learning Coach" is especially effective when the "learning coach" is a stay-at-home parent who is constantly involved in the learning process. In K-8, parents can sign their students up for virtual classes where students of the same grade all over the state come to the virtual class, listen to the teacher, and answer questions. These classes are run through virtual conferencing software called Blackboard Elluminate Live. In 9-12, students are required to attend their classes online at the assigned time. Some students take advantage of live instruction, while others watch recordings of the lesson. The recorded lessons are especially useful for students who have difficulty with capturing auditory instruction, or quickly understanding or remembering the materials, where the recordings allow them to pause and replay lessons, just as much as rereading written materials can enhance learning and retention. In some courses for students who are struggling, The teacher can set the response box so that only he or she can see the responses. Because of this, students don't have to worry about getting the answer wrong in front of the whole class; the only ones that would know that the answer was wrong would be the teacher and the student. Class sizes are small and Class Connects with a State Certified Teacher are Required, each student has 2 or more live sessions within a "Virtual Classroom" each day, plus all of their Online Learning Coursework at a flexible but progressive pace with their Learning Coach which includes both online and offline studies. Students are required to take the same state standardized test as a typical "brick and mortar" school. Independent standardized measures are administered at different points of the school year in reading, language arts, and math to measure progress, and, to identify student weaknesses, where they may be assigned extra work to increase their performance.
Student demographic Students enrolled in CAVA for different reasons. The differentiated content is well adapted to the gifted student as well as the student who learns differently, needs more assistance, is being removed from an unsafe or bully situation, or who is interested in pursuing other interests such as acting, music sports, or job necessitated travel, that the asynchronous schedule and online school allows. Although materials are provided, the need to have an adult with the student often means parents need to sacrifice a second income, and as such, is an expensive choice that is prohibitive to lower income families. The population is diverse of both race and culture, although like all online schools the population is more white than the general student body. CAVA is good option for the extremely self-motivated student. Additionally, CAVA is a good option for student who would otherwise attend small rural schools that don't offer AP and other advanced classes. It is also a good option for the challenged student who has huge parental support. Due to the number of struggling students who leave the traditional brick-and-mortar school to enroll in CAVA, the average pass rate and test scores of the CAVA students is well below state averages. CAVA students are part of a large student body, but they rarely, if ever, meet any of the other students in person due to the distance of monthly outings. There is an ASB in middle and high school, and multiple online clubs as well as the National Honors Society that promotes leadership, academics, and community involvement.
Classification
The California Virtual Academy is considered a virtual public school, not a home-school. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and needs to meet the rigorous requirements of the ACS. Most of the courses are approved by the University of California as meeting its a-g high school requirements, and as of 2017, some of the laboratory science and art courses are being acknowledged as meeting the UC requirements as they are adding physical meeting locations to meet the in-person instructional requirements. Minimum attendance days, physical fitness, and participation in state tests is required.
See also
- Elluminate Live
- Ohio Virtual Academy
- Wisconsin Virtual Academy
References
3. Virtual School Profits Far Exceeding Performance <http://neatoday.org/2013/05/17/virtual-schools-profits-far-exceeding-performance/
External links
- CAVA