Florida Virtual School

The Florida Virtual School (FLVS) is a US state virtual school founded in 1997. It is located in the southeastern state of Florida, USA. FLVS offers education at the K-12 level (kindergarten through twelfth grade). FLVS will enroll students through age 19; students must complete their course before age 21. All courses are fully online.

There were 213,296 semester course enrollments for 97,182 students in grades 6-12 in 2009-10. Additionally, in 2010-2011, more than 115,000 students across the state of Florida took at least one course with the Florida Virtual School.

FLVS is roughly three times larger than any other state virtual school, and 10-25 times larger than most.

More Details

The first US statewide online public high school (i.e. open to all Floridians), FLVS makes its courses free to all Florida students; others may enrol and pay tuition. FLVS is a curriculum provider and does not award diplomas directly. Floridian students are typically enrolled in a Florida public school.

Funding of FLVS is built directly into the state education funding formula. Funding is performance-based: FLVS receives funding only for students who successfully complete their courses. This is the same funding formula as for the state's traditional public schools, i.e. the funding tied to that student goes to FLVS.

Florida school districts may select to set up their own FLVS Franchise schools.

FLVS is known (and sometimes maligned) for its use of eLearning Centers (ELCs) and Virtual Learning Labs (VLLs). 150 schools in Florida have implemented these in partnership with FLVS, in which:

• The traditional school provides scheduled time and a workspace (such as a computer lab or library) and FLVS provides the teacher and an online course.
• ELCs and VLLs each have a facilitator to work in tandem with the online teacher.

Statewide, the number of VLLs greatly expanded in 2009-10 (especially in Miami-Dade) due to class size reduction legislation (as districts select virtual options to meet the new requirements).

The Florida Virtual School web site is at http://www.flvs.net/Pages/default.aspx.

References

• "As virtual school options expand, some worry about costs and quality", eSchoolNews, 20 September 2011, http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/09/20/as-virtual-school-options-expand-some-worry-about-costs-and-quality
• "A National Primer on K-12 Online Learning", iNACOL, October 2010, http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/national_report.pdf
• "Building the Next Generation of Online Courses", CHECKpoint eLearning, November 2009, http://www.checkpoint-elearning.com/article/7423.html
• Florida Virtual School, http://www.flvs.net/Pages/default.aspx*
• "In Florida, Virtual Classrooms With No Teachers", L. Herrera, New York Times, 17 January 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/education/18classrooms.html?pagewanted=all
• "Keeping Pace With Online Learning: An Annual Review of Policy and Practice", Evergreen Education Group, 2010, http://kpk12.com/reports/
• "2010 Report on State Virtual Schools in SREB States", Southern Regional Education Board Educational Technology

Cooperative, June 2011, http://publications.sreb.org/2010/2010ExecutiveSummary.pdf

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> United States
> Virtual schools