MTS Minnesota Connections Academy: Virtual School Helps Academic All-Star Succeed
Sharing administrators helps school districts in Minnesota save money
Four years ago, West St. Paul launched a new alternative high school program right on its border with Inver Grove Heights. The 70-student school is run by Intermediate District 917, of which the three are members, and it offers something older alternative programs didn’t: technical education classes for college credit.
Principal Dan Hurley said the school allows each district to keep students who might have dropped out or left for online schools — and taken per-pupil state dollars with them.
“Those kids would just disappear,” Hurley said. “Every option they were leaving for, we now offer.”
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Connections Academy TV Commercial — Online Learning Experience that Develops your Whole Child
Logging into high school
East Ridge High School junior Lauren Yonkoski listens attentively to her French 3 teacher, however Lauren isn’t sitting in a classroom. She’s sitting at the computer listening to her teacher online.
Yonkoski is currently enrolled in French at Insight School of Minnesota, a virtual high school.
Yonkoski said Insight has given her the flexibility to fit French into her schedule when it wasn’t feasible at East Ridge.
“It was either online or nothing,” she said.
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10 Websites That Make Homeschooling Easy
Connections Academy – Offers a solid free online home school program. Connections Academy provides a new form of free public school that students can attend from home. The program combines parental involvement, expertise and accountability, and flexibility of classes.
eHarvey – An online school combining three different complementary technologies to provide a robust, flexible and supportive online learning experience.
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Petition forces audit of Houston Virtual Academy payments
School board members declined to comment on the allegations after the meeting Tuesday night.
More than $88,000 in monthly stipends to former superintendent Kim Ross and others – taken from an account linked to the district’s online class system – were never authorized by the school board, claims Kevin Kelleher, former director of Houston School District’s Minnesota Virtual Academy.
“With my knowledge of the virtual academy, I know who did the work,” said Kelleher. “It wasn’t these guys.”
The board kept mostly quiet during the public comment portion of the meeting, as Kelleher and other residents read the petition in two-minute segments.
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Education Without the Classroom
AUSTIN, MN–Hate going to school at 7 am? Would you rather just go in your pajamas and never have to leave home?
That’s a very real statement for hundreds of Minnesota high schoolers who are getting their diplomas online. That’s not a quite a reality in Iowa yet, But as KIMT News 3′s Gwen Siewert is finding out there’s a lot that goes into the equation of finding out if online school is right for you.
There are 24 online schools in the gopher state. Most are regulated by the department of education and get state funding. So why isn’t Iowa getting in on online education? If your student can succeed without bells telling them when to move classrooms, it may be something parents can soon explore.
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State education agency to review online schools that get aid
The Minnesota Department of Education will conduct a review of every online school that receives state aid, Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius said Friday.
Cassellius announced the internal review in a statement that also said the department had improperly released private data related to 20 students at BlueSky Online School.
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New year, new school? Virtual schools ease transition
Educators say many families switching their kids’ schools mid-year are turning to virtual schools like Connections Academy, for a variety of reasons.
First, more families than ever have embraced virtual education in general: Some 2 million American K-12 students now get some or all of their education virtually, according to research firm Ambient Insight. Second, the format of virtual schools eases a student’s adjustment period – and physical transitions for both student and family. Finally, family finances sometimes come into play. Virtual public schools – like all public schools – are tuition free and virtual private schools like National Connections Academy cost a fraction of traditional “bricks and mortar” private schools. Yet they deliver the academic rigor and highly personalized educations that are hallmarks of independent schools. So families with children enrolled in traditional private schools who are struggling to meet hefty tuition obligations often find they can save significant money and still get an independent school-caliber education.
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A look back at 2010
Maintaining a rank as No. 1 junior boys tennis player in the state — and a rank of 30 nationally — would make for a grueling schedule for any high school student. That’s doubly true if you’re Wyatt McCoy of Shoreview, 17, who also maintains straight As and tries to have the social life of a normal teenager. McCoy juggles all that by attending an online high school, the Brooklyn Center-based Insight School of Minnesota.
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