Metro cyber school to expand as district fights off tag

Don’t mistake it for that other cyber school in Tennessee that you may have heard about.

That’s a theme Metro Nashville public school officials keep promoting, trying to distance their 3-year-old online high school from the for-profit Tennessee Virtual Academy, which serves students in grades K-8 and has taken a public relations beating since its inception over abysmal achievement marks.

Now, convinced its got a top program, Metro plans to expand the Metro Nashville Virtual School to middle school grades this fall, in part to provide an option for Nashville students enrolled in the beleaguered Tennessee Virtual Academy. The district will start with 70 seats in seventh and eighth grades.

“The MNPS virtual school is ... the highest-performing virtual school in the state,” said Jay Steele, the district’s chief academic officer.

Tennessee’s nine virtual public schools have their own principals and teachers and are evaluated just like every other public school in Tennessee, but the similarities end there.

In Nashville, the school’s 100 full-time and 350 part-time students work on laptops from where they wish and interact with teachers electronically and occasionally in person.

They take six online courses per semester through software developed by Washington D.C.-based technology company Blackboard Inc. Self-discipline and independence are must-have attributes, while flexibility is the appeal.

‘Work at your own pace’

“You work at your own pace,” said 17-year-old Donald White, who left Pearl-Cohn High School and went virtual after growing tired of the big-school culture.

“Instead of being on the same schedule as the regular school, you can work ahead and get done with the class.”

Twice a week, he spends all day in a student center at the Cohn School building off Charlotte Pike. There, in a revamped wing of the building, students receive face-to-face help and work alongside peers.

The Tennessee Virtual Academy, operated by the for-profit company K-12 Inc., also opened in 2011. It’s contracted by Union County Public Schools but its more than 3,000 students come from across the state.

It has been marred by some of the lowest end-of-year test results of any school district in the state, prompting calls from state lawmakers last year to shut it down.

Metro’s virtual school, which is district-operated instead of outsourced, surpassed the expected learning gains of its students in all areas except Algebra II, officials said. The school showed an average ACT of 21.8 this school year, but that’s based on results from just 17 students. Metro’s overall ACT score has hovered between 18 and 19.

Metro virtual students are asked to verbally demonstrate mastery of a subject to prove they were the ones taking the course online. Software is designed to track whether students are falling behind and to prompt intervention, including contacting parents.

“You’re expected to really own your education and advocate on your own behalf,” said James Witty, executive director of Metro’s virtual school. “That said, another thing that really makes us unique is our intervention protocol.

“Everyone is in the loop if a student has gotten behind in the course.”

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236.