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Florida Virtual School
The Florida Virtual School (FLVS) is a US state virtual school founded in 1997. It is located in the south eastern state of Florida, USA.
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. There were 213,296 semester course enrollments to 97,182 students in grades 6-12 in 2009-10; this represents an increase of 38% since 2008-09. The percentage of these from Florida is unknown.
FLVS is roughly three times larger than any other state virtual school, and 10-25 times larger than most.
More Details
Florida districts may select to set up FLVS Franchise schools.
Districts are required by law to provide students a full-time online learning option; students hoping to take FLVS online courses cannot be denied that opportunity.
The schools's unique funding model can be characterised as follows:
- Funding of FLVS is built directly into the state education funding formula
- Funding is performance-based: FLVS receives funding only for students who successfully completes their courses
- Same funding formula as the state’s traditional public schools, i.e. the funding tied to that student goes to FLVS
FLVS is known (and sometimes maligned) for itss use of eLearning Centers (ELCs) and Virtual Learning Labs (VLLs). 150 schools in Florida have implemented these in partnership with FLVS:
- 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
- Florida Virtual School, http://www.flvs.net/Pages/default.aspx
- "A National Primer on K-12 Online Learning", iNACOL, October 2010, http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/national_report.pdf
- "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