One of the things you will notice, as you look at the families of virtual school advocates, often times, they have some of their children, at one time or another, leave virtual schooling to go to a traditional brick and mortar classroom. I can imagine this has caused at least one person along to way to say, "if virtual schooling is so wonderful, why aren't all your kids involved?"
My third son was initially enrolled in the Ozaukee County incarnation of WIVA. Because of the condition of my local school district, I did not want him going to the local public middle school. However, because we live in a rural area, I didn't want to drive the 40+ miles required to get him to the next middle school over. So, we tried WIVA (Ozaukee version) It was a good fit.
Mr. Schmidt (whom I believe is no longer with WVA) was my sons home room teacher. And it was wonderful. Mr. Schmidt not only got my son to do reasonable quality of work, but he also taught my son some life skills that are really needed.
But, at that time, WIVA (Ozaukee version) didn't have a high school. I switch my son to Grantsburg Virtual School (another school that has changed and is now run by Insight Schools) It wasn't good. Not that Grantsburg wasn't good. In my opinion, we lost a tremendous resource when Grantsburg chose to reorganize.) This child in virtual schools wasn't good. Sure, a child can get behind in any school. Because of the number of assignments, because of the method of teaching, when a child gets behind in a virtual setting, it becomes extremely difficult to get them out. (All schools are looking at the problem. All of the schools have come up with different ways to help manage this problem. It isn't the HUGE issue that it was six years ago.)
After TWO really bad years for my son, we put him into a local private high school. It's a very small school - only 6 teachers total. I thought, this might give him a chance to be the extrovert that he is, and learn some things on the way. It would have been fine, eventually. My son was beginning to be accepted by some of the students there. The problem was me. I am, and always will be a geek. I found myself struggling with some of the methods of teaching being used. I struggled with some of the content. I didn't fit.
My son was ready to head into his senior year. I had filled out all of the open enrollment forms. I left open the potential to return him to virtual schools, and the nice high school 45 miles away. At some point, before June 1st, we discovered something. The US Military will NOT accept students immediately out of high school if they attend a virtual school. ALL virtual schools have a tier 2 rating by the US Military. (Of the administrators I talk with, all of them are aware of the problem and are trying to come to a solution.) This means,
IF your child wants to join the U.S. Military straight out of high school they cannot attend a virtual school during their senior year.
So, what did we do? Actually, he was home schooled his final year. The U.S. Military gives tier 1 status to home schooled students. -now, that's the kind of lobbying power virtual schools need.
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