Idaho to get its first elementary cyberschool

Any student in the state can enroll in charter

Bill Roberts
The Idaho Statesman

A new charter school is expected to open in Idaho next fall, and any
kindergartner through fifth grader, from the Treasure Valley to
Pocatello, can enroll.

You´ll need a computer to attend, and the school will even supply
that.

Idaho´s first elementary cyberschool, called Idaho Virtual Academy,
will offer a traditional curriculum delivered to students at home via
computer and mailings that will include workbooks, science kits and
maps.

Instruction will be provided primarily by parents, and backed up with
a cadre of regional, state-certified teachers who will grade papers,
track student progress and confer with students and parents several
times a month.

Idaho Virtual Academy´s curriculum comes from a young for-profit
company called K12, founded in Virginia about two years ago by
former U.S. Secretary of Education Bill Bennett. About 1,000
students in charter schools in Pennsylvania and Colorado now use
the program. The company also is expanding into Ohio and
California.

The Idaho Virtual Academy doesn´t yet know how many students or
teachers it will have. The academy, offered through an eastern Idaho
school district, will hold informational meetings in Boise and Nampa
this week for families interested in enrolling.

Laurieann Shoemaker, a Middleton parent, can´t wait for the school
to open. She has used the K12 curriculum to supplement her
6-year-old daughter´s education in a Caldwell private school. But
now she wants to use it full-time.

“The academic standards are high,” said Shoemaker, a software
designer for Hewlett-Packard Co. and member of a coalition that
helped create the virtual academy.

“The child has access to what any full school would have,” she said.

But even before Idaho Virtual Academy opens, Boise and Meridian school district officials
have criticized the cyberschool — based out of Arco in eastern Idaho — for its potential to
siphon away their students to a school where they have little say about the quality of
education.

State lawmakers gave Idahoans the opportunity to create charter schools in 1998 as a tool to
encourage innovative education programs not usually found in traditional public schools.
Charter schools are public schools, financed by taxpayer money and free to the students who
attend.

Until now, however, charter schools in Idaho were limited by geography, because most
parents had to drive their children to school.

And local school districts — which grant and oversee the charters — could exert a measure
of control over what kind of educational environment students experience even outside the
regular classroom.

Money follows the student

But parents from Boise to Buhl could opt to enroll their children in the Idaho Virtual Academy,
which is bounded only by its ability to sign up homes with Internet connections. And if
students leave their home districts to attend school online, a portion of the state money that
helped pay for their education would go to the academy.

“I would have real concerns about the accountability of the (academy) as well as the success
of its students,” said Christine Donnell, Meridian School District.

Idaho Virtual Academy isn´t the only online school experiment in Idaho drawing from across
the state. In Mountain Home, a virtual charter high school is set to open this summer, and
nearly all of the 430 students registered so far come from outside the Mountain Home School
District. It tends to attract students who are not now in school, and local districts are not likely
see it as big a threat to their operating money.

State Rep. Fred Tilman, R-Boise, who wrote the state´s charter school law in 1998, said
these kinds of new approaches are just what he had in mind when he drafted the legislation.

“This sounds to be truly innovative,” said Tilman, House Education committee chairman.
“We´ve got to quit thinking about the system.”

Besides, say charter school supporters, students will be required to take all the same
statewide achievement tests as students in regular public schools. If test scores don´t meet
or exceed statewide averages, the school could lose its charter.

Academy backers say they have a program that should appeal to home-schoolers, but the
home-schooling community appears divided about the value of a virtual charter school.

“We believe that virtual charter schools are harmful to home education because they will
reduce the freedoms of home educators and restrict parental choice,” said Barry Peters,
legal adviser for Idaho Coalition of Home Educators. “As home educators, we prefer freedom
to ´freebies.´ ”

But Caldwell resident Gina Ihli, who has home-schooled two of her children, is intrigued by
the charter school.

“It could be a wonderful option for us,” she said. “It allows flexibility and could alleviate a lot of
anxiety that am I covering everything I should be.”

A foothold in Idaho

Idaho Virtual Academy got its charter from the Butte County School District.

Janet Aikele, district superintendent, pushed for the school and the K12 curriculum as a way
to bring a more enriched education to the tiny district of about 600 students.

“I´m sick of kids in rural communities getting cheated” because schools don´t have the staff to
offer all the programs parents and kids would like, she said.

But Aikele isn´t pushing the charter schools for her students necessarily; the district can´t
afford to lose many more students and the state money that comes with them, she said.

But Butte County will get to test pieces of the K12 curriculum in its mainstream schools — at
no cost — which she says will be a boon to her students. And K12 will get a foothold in Idaho.

Idaho Virtual Academy will offer a curriculum that has earned high marks from independent
researchers, even though it´s been in the marketplace just about a year.

Last fall, the Pennsylvania Department of Education released a study of cyberschool
education programs in the state and gave high praise to the K12 curriculum.

“Throughout the K12 curriculum, the material adapts to the student´s background, language
levels and developmental stages,” said the report by KPMG Consulting, one of the country´s
leading independent consulting firms. “The content of the courses is based upon solid
research … and exhibits a logical hierarchy and sequence.”

Bennett, the former education secretary and drug czar, pulled together some well-pedigreed
educators from across the country to develop the educational program. His advisers included
a Yale computer technology professor and a Nobel Prize winner.

“In some ways it is a common-sense curriculum,” Bennett said.

K12´s reading program is based on phonics. Science uses hands-on experiments. History is
taught chronologically, not by big-picture concepts such as revolutions or immigration.

“I´m a big-thinking kind of guy,” Bennett said. “But the way you learn about big things is you
learn the facts first.”

Relying on parents

Even with all the curriculum support, however, K12 still relies heavily on parents as teachers.

That´s a role Shoemaker knows well.

The Middleton mother spends a couple of hours each night or on weekends with her
daughter Janey Beumeler going over math and language in the K12 curriculum. But Janey
also spends part of the day in kindergarten in a small private Canyon County school.

When Janey enrolls in the charter school, the commitment of Shoemaker, her husband, Joe
Beumeler, and Janey will have to change.

Shoemaker already is talking with her employer about working a more flexible schedule to
give her time in the morning and afternoons to teach Janey.

Joe Beumeler, who farms about 700 acres around Middleton, also is committed to taking time
for Janey´s education.

“We are working that out,” Shoemaker said. “You have to focus on a schedule. You want to
educate during the prime hours.”

Yet home-based learning — even with oversight by certified teachers — raises concerns
about whether children will get the proper socialization they need along with their ABCs.

“Our world is getting bigger,” said Rory Jones, Boise School Board president. “This is not a
global view.”

K12 officials say students will get that. In face-to-face encounters with teachers and on
school-sponsored field trips, students will get help with socialization.

And Shoemaker said she will have to make an extra effort to be sure Janey does interact with
other children. But it is worth the effort because Shoemaker says Janey can get a more
thorough education at home than in either public or private schools.

Much about Idaho Virtual Academy remains under development. The school doesn´t have a
board of directors yet. It plans to hire a head of school and a couple of other positions, but it
won´t know how many teachers — or students, for that matter — until students actually start
enrolling .

But Aikele, the Butte County superintendent, said she is committed to the concept and
curriculum.

“We are blazing new territory,” she said.

To offer story ideas or comments, contact Bill Roberts
[email protected] or 377-6408

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