District Seeks Funding For Online Classes

SEBRING - As more students use Florida Virtual School, school districts face the reality of funding losses.

The Highlands County School District is proposing a way to receive funding for some students who are taking online courses.

If a student takes an online class during the school day, that takes a tremendous amount of funding away from the school district, School Board Chairman J. Ned Hancock said. But those virtual classes may be the only opportunity for the district's students to take certain courses.

"Everybody is saying it's [virtual school] for the more advanced classes and that's the case with some of them," he said. "Let's say you wanted to take German, that's not an advanced class, that's just a foreign language class that we don't have enough demand to offer or probably the faculty currently to teach the class."

Superintendent Wally Cox said the district is seeking funding credit only if the school provides a computer lab and a proctor for students to do their online studies. If students are taking the courses at night or at home, the district would receive no funding.

A very low number of students are currently taking Florida Virtual School classes in their school's media center, according to Cox.

"We are not doing a lot of that now, but we may want to do more of it because we think in some cases it's the best option in serving some students," he said. "We are looking ahead. If we expand that, we just think we should get some partial revenue."

Hancock said, "We are in the process of drafting legislation; we are going to ask our legislative delegation to sponsor it. I'm not sure if it can be done with just a rule change or if it does take actual legislation."

But he has been told that the fail-safe way to make the change is through legislation.

The school district will receive $4,315 from the state this school year for each full-time student. The 2007-08 estimated student enrollment is 12,571.