Chesterfield developing virtual high school

When Isaiah Benitez learned that he had an opportunity to help produce music for artists in Los Angeles, he was overwhelmed.

"I could have had a heart attack!" he said recently as he played with sounds on his music console and laptop at home in Matoaca.

Benitez, 19, said he knew it was a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to work in popular music production, but he didn't want to quit his high school education. He ruled out working toward an equivalency diploma and doing home schooling because they could not provide the flexibility he needed.

His principal at Matoaca High School suggested online classes, and he began taking seven of them last fall.

"It makes things flexible," Benitez said. "I can do my work whenever I want to, as long as it's being done. I'm a better producer now because I have the opportunity to work on my craft."

Benitez is the only student in the Chesterfield County school system taking all of his classes online. He does his course work at home in the morning and dedicates the rest of his time to producing music.

In the near future, however, school officials expect more students to opt for an online education. The system has begun developing its own virtual high school.

In three to four years, the Chesterfield Online Academy will offer the 18 core courses high school students need to graduate, said Lynda Gillespie, the Chesterfield school system's technology director. The system still will allow students to take courses through the Virginia Department of Education's Virtual Virginia, which gives online Advanced Placement courses.

"The capability will be there to actually take core classes without ever coming to a building," she said. "I suspect that most of our students in Chesterfield will still take courses in schools, but will also take online courses."

Chesterfield is following a state and national trend in which more students are taking online courses, and virtual schools are popping up to serve that need.

Henrico County schools offer 12 online courses at the high school level, mostly in the summer. Hanover County developed and offers computer-based government and Algebra I courses through Blackboard and other online classes via outside virtual schools during the year. In Richmond, 40 students take online courses through Virtual Virginia.

According to the Northern Virginia-based International Association for K-12 Online Learning, the $50 million online-learning market is growing by 30 percent a year.

The association estimates that a million K-12 students were enrolled in online courses last school year. That is a 47 percent increase since the 2005-06 school year.

Chesterfield has about 2,700 students taking online courses through Virtual Virginia, Blackboard, Virtual High School in Maynard, Mass., and Novel/Stars, a subscription-based program.

For the Chesterfield academy, the school system has developed ninthand 10th-grade health and physical-education courses offered during the school year and summer.

Students fulfill the health requirement online and the physical portion at health clubs with which the school system has partnered.

The Novel/Stars format, through which Chesterfield schools offer current core classes, does not allow students to interact through the Internet, Gillespie said.

"They're kind of straight delivery," she said. "It's more canned. Good online learning has places where students can have digital discussions, blogs and other opportunities to collaborate online and really establish an online collaborative community."

The online academy will offer the Web interaction for students to have a true virtual experience, Gillespie said.

"What we're doing right now is replacing those with these higher-end classes," she said.

In the fall, 11thand 12th-grade English and government courses will be added to the online academy, she said.

The virtual high school has three online learning content developers, an administrator and a guidance counselor. Additional teachers will be added as the number of classes increases.

The Chesterfield school system is following standards for K-12 online courses and teachers created by the Southern Regional Education Board and adopted by the North American Council for Online Learning.

"The main thing that we do is push for licensed teachers who are highly qualified," said Allison Powell, the council's vice president.

The key to quality online teachers is training, she said. Virtual schools are providing training, and so is the council. The council also is pushing for universities to train future teachers in online instruction, she said. Many online programs also are developing their own training, she said. Chesterfield does its own training to need.

Students taking online classes need to be motivated and good time managers to succeed, Powell said.

"They don't have someone standing in front of them and telling them, 'Turn to this page,'" she said.

Most students succeed, said Cabell Miltenberger, who is the only full-time virtual teacher in Chesterfield. The school system encourages parents to monitor their children's online schooling because students can be removed after 15 days of inactivity.

Miltenberger said she uses e-mail and the telephone to assist about 100 students a year with their health and physical-education courses online.

"You can always find me online checking questions," she said. "It's just a different way of teaching."

Miltenberger sees the students only a few times a year, when they come to the school system's Fulghum Center on Cogbill Road to take exams to make sure they're the ones doing the studying.

Most students taking the online courses are attending specialty centers and have heavy course loads, she said.

"In order to make room for electives and the school day, this is an opportunity for them to include [the physical-education] requirement," she said.

Benitez, the Matoaca senior, said he has been traveling to Atlanta for recording sessions, and the online classes fit his schedule as he pursues a career. He plans to move to Los Angeles this summer and is putting off college for the time being.

"When I finish the online classes here, I can be free," he said. "All I think about is L.A. If it wasn't for the online classes, I wouldn't be this happy."