The grind of high school classes used to stifle Victoria Hasek’s passion for dance, but not anymore.
Now, as a cyber sophomore, she has the flexibility to perfect her pirouettes and pass required classes on her own schedule as a student in Forsyth County’s iAchieve Virtual Academy, an online school.
“I felt like last year, with normal school, I could only give a quarter of my time to dance,” said Hasek, 16, who went from taking three dance classes to 10 once she enrolled in iAchieve.
Her sister Elizabeth, an honors student, finished her senior year online with straight A's in December so she could focus more on college and a dance teaching career.
Interest in online learning is growing as the number of cyber campuses opening in Georgia will triple this fall, giving students a public education at their fingertips.
Currently, about 7,000 Georgia students are enrolled in full-time online programs.
In August, six such full-time campuses will deliver online classes rooted in the Georgia Performance Standards curriculum. Most will offer free enrollment statewide.
Among the schools' likely clients are Georgia's home school market, which has grown by nearly 8 percent since 2007 to 42,474 students this school year. They represent about 2.6 percent of Georgia's K-12 students.
"We will have, for the first time, competition in the virtual school market and opportunities across the K-12 spectrum," said Mark Peevy, executive director of the Georgia Charter Schools Commission. Four of the virtual schools are commission charter schools like Georgia Cyber Academy, which has 6,500 students.
The cyber schooling of K-12 students is a $507 million market that is growing by about 30 percent annually, according to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, which tracks virtual classrooms. Only 27 states have full-time online schools.
Forsyth County Schools, a district of 36,000 students, launched iAchieve last fall as the state's first virtual local high school. The online campus has about 130 students, 30 percent of whom were home-schooled.
A few study from overseas. Forsyth students Haleigh and Caleb Lewis log on for lessons from Hong Kong while their family is living there on business. A few others residing outside Forsyth pay $3,000 in tuition for classes.
Gwinnett County Schools will follow Forsyth into the cyber education business this fall with its own brand, Gwinnett County Online Campus, which will open with about 125 students. The district has nearly 3,500 home school students.
Principal Christopher Ray said the school will be on the forefront of delivering online content to students in Gwinnett, using iPads, laptops and cellphones to read and complete assignments.
Like other cyber charters, Gwinnett Online will use a communication program that will give students virtual face time with teachers. The connectivity sessions will allow students to see and write on whiteboards and interact with cyber classmates. Classes will meet for field trips, labs and to take standardized tests.
Virtual schools are not for all students. Virtual students can feel isolated. Gym is not provided. Clubs are limited. They cannot play on their local district sports teams. And virtual students must be self-advocates. They must be able to ask for help by calling or emailing a teacher, which can be difficult for shy kids.
On the other side, one of the biggest challenges for virtual school providers is verifying students are working.
“There is no way to guarantee they are doing the assignments themselves,” Principal Brad Smith of iAchieve said. “It is important for families to monitor their student.”
Teachers also look for changes in work that may be abnormal. “If a student has not been doing very well ... and all of a sudden they take the subject assessment and they make a very high grade, that’s a red flag,” Smith said.
Still, Georgia Cyber Academy has received 1,500 applications from parents who want flexible schedules for their kids. GCA first opened in 2007 with 2,500 students, 45 percent of whom were home schooling.
Matt Arkin, head of school, said parents are attracted to GCA because their kids can work at their own pace. Ten percent of GCA students take gifted courses. Special needs services also are provided. This fall, Advanced Placement courses and classes in foreign language, music and art will be added to the curriculum.
Nakata Fitch found GCA the ideal environment for her son Niles, a child actor who has appeared in plays and has a role in a Tyler Perry TV sitcom.
“A child actor travels and they are going to be absent,” said Fitch, who has relocated to New York. “But you still want your child to do well in school. The virtual school gives a lot of assessments. At the end of every lesson you can tell whether a child understood what they were learning.”
Virtual school students also take state standardized tests in person to adhere to federal accountability measures for student achievement.
After testing, iAchieve soon will be graduating its first class. No ceremony has been planned.
Senior Elizabeth Hasek isn't worried. She is focusing on dance and attending Brigham Young University.
"If you really find something you love and want to give all of your heart to, then the little things seem smaller," she said.
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