"The Nelson County School Board approved a new academy of virtual learning before the start of last school year, intending to connect the county’s home-schooled students with the community using the latest education-related technology.
The virtual school, however, is serving more out-of-county students than locals. Of the 50 students enrolled in the kindergarten-through-eighth grade virtual school last school year, only four were from Nelson.

Shannon Irvin, the assistant superintendent of finance and personnel for Nelson County schools, said that the division receives additional state money for the out-of-county students, and that the funding is devoted entirely to the virtual academy. The division does not use the additional funds for other purposes, and it also does not fund the virtual school using Nelson County money, Irvin said.

“The goal always is to break even,” she said. “We’re not trying to make money from it but provide a service to the students.”

The virtual-school students - whether Nelson residents or not - pay no tuition or fees and the county provides all textbooks and other materials. The virtual school cost the division about $106,000 last school year, including the salary for its director. The division’s operational budget for the coming school year is $23.1 million.

“Our residents and taxpayers that home school their children were being left out of the benefits of the division and we wanted to provide a service to those constituents,” Irvin said.

Nelson had 43 home-schooled children from kindergarten through eighth grade in 2005-06, according to the Virginia Department of Education, and 54 in all.

School Board member Jane Mays hopes the virtual school catches on among Nelson residents who choose to home school their children because she believes it provides a structured program that adheres more directly to the state-mandated Standards of Learning.

“We have services for them and, hopefully, more will be coming along,” said Mays, who acknowledged the financial benefits of the virtual school but was surprised at how many of the students live outside of the county.

“We didn’t realize we were going to get an interest throughout the state,” she said.

The virtual school’s curriculum is organized by K12 Inc., a for-profit company in Herndon that is also used by Halifax County schools in Virginia and by 34 other public school divisions throughout the country.

Virtual-school students engage in lessons and daily tests gauging how they grasp the concepts presented to them. Nelson hired one teacher for 2006-07 who monitors only the virtual students. Irvin said the division would like to have four teachers for the coming year.

The School Board’s vice chairman, John Kirchner, believes the virtual school will help connect home-schooled children more to the Nelson community, and called the interest by students from other counties “an extra bonus.”

“That was not the intent, but with an Internet-based curriculum, location doesn’t matter,” Kirchner said of the response that the school has received from outsiders.

Irvin said that the division has received an additional 150 virtual-school applicants for the fall, with the majority coming from outside the county.

She hopes to accept about 100, which would double the school’s enrollment." (Matt Deegan, The Daily Progress, August 11, 2007)