New Virtual Options

There is a distinct difference in using the virtual courses as a supplement to a home education program and using it full time as a public school at home.

During the 2011 Session, the Florida Legislature expanded virtual education options to students both in the classroom and at home. Florida Virtual School can now offer a full time public option for K-12 grades to any public school student in the state or to any home education or private school student entering grades K-1 or 6-12. School districts can offer part-time courses of their own design or from an approved online provider to public school students taking grades 9-12 courses that are measured by an FCAT, an End of Course, or an AP exam. Blended virtual and traditional classroom programs can be provided by school districts. School Boards have now been authorized to approve Charter Virtual Schools and those will most likely be opening in some districts for the 2012-13 school year. So, if you think you are confused about what virtual options are available, who they serve, and what is offered, you are not alone. The virtual options are abundant, but don’t get confused about the fact that even though students are being taught at home, the program is not directed by their parents. Therefore, these students are not being home educated; they are public school students.

The following information was taken from: A Parent’s Guide to Choosing the Right Online Program. A iNACOL publication, February 2010. You may read the entire publication at:

http://www.inacol.org/research/promisingpractices/docs/NACOL_PP-ParentsGuide-lr.pdf

How is online learning different from homeschooling?

Taking an online course or attending a full-time online school is not homeschooling. The online learning options discussed in this paper are provided by school districts, charter schools, state education agencies and other entities that are part of the public education system. Because these are public school online learning opportunities, curricula must meet state academic standards; teachers must be licensed according to state requirements and specially trained in online learning; and students must take all assessments required by federal and state laws. (Page 5)

Even though the Florida Virtual School Classic is a public program, it is not a full time program. Students remain registered with their district as a home educated student and their education is directed by the parent. Home educators are familiar with, and have been using, the Florida Virtual School (FLVS) Classic as a supplemental program for almost a decade. The Home Education Foundation worked hard to help establish this program. The reason was that prior to 1998 many home educators put their child(ren) back in public school at 9th grade because those parents lacked the confidence to teach a course or two. FLVS Classic bridged the gap for many families between the 8th grade and dual enrollment. FLVS Classic courses fit into their schedule and philosophy. The FLVS Classic model is “Any Time, Any Place, Any Path, Any Pace.” When parents use the FLVS Classic model, they remain in control of their child’s educational path.

While full time virtual education is not home education, it offers options that otherwise would not be available to parents who want to keep their children at home. There are two circumstances in which a parent may wish to consider one of the full time public virtual programs, including the FLVS FT Public, over a home education program:

1. when a parent of a special needs student wishes to teach their child at home and still continue receiving the ESE services that a public school is required to provide or
2. when a student intends to enter the military and needs to receive a high school diploma.

NOTE: Parents need to understand that the newer full time models of virtual public education, including FLVS FT Public, are more attendance driven, have more regimented classes with grade-level curriculum and require that the student take all required state assessments. This might not be a good fit for struggling students or those with special needs.

In addition to the FLVS FT Public Program, FLVS will be offering a full time program for home education students. In the FLVS FT Home Education Program, the student will be registered as a home education student with his/her school district and will retain home education status. However, FLVS, rather than the parent, will direct the student’s education, but the parent, rather than FLVS, will be required to provide the final transcript and diploma for their child. The student must complete all courses within the 180-day school year but will not have to take the required state assessments.

Parents know their child and will have to decide which of the many options will best meet their child’s needs and goals. There are trade-offs for every choice. If a parent of a public school child with special needs is considering home education, that parent will need to decide if enrolling the child in a full time virtual program in order for the child to receive ESE services is a better fit than home education.

HEF has created a chart of the virtual education options available to home education students so that parents can compare these programs. We hope this will help you clear up some of the confusion and help you make a wise choice for your child.

Florida Virtual Education Chart

Dual Enrollment

Articulated Acceleration is a program that has been available to Florida students in public and private schools for many years. Dual enrollment is one of the ways to accelerate a student's progress. The Florida Statutes which address these programs are 240.115 and 240.116. In 1996, the Home Education Foundation was successful in lobbying the Legislature to include home educated students in this program. The home education portion is defined in F.S.240.116(7).

Many home education students have taken advantage of this opportunity, and several have earned an AA degree from a community college about the same time they graduate from home education. This is precisely what the program was designed to do, thus the name articulated acceleration. It was established by the Legislature to move students, who are ready, through the educational system at an accelerated rate. It is a great concept and most people recognize the advantages of this program. The problem is that the state pays both the community college and the high school to provide the courses to the students, thus making it a doubly funded program. I have been talking to Legislators and the Appropriation Committee Staff since 1994 about dual enrollment funding. There has been a desire, since that time, to eliminate the double funding issue. The Legislature likes this program and sees it as a way to move students through the system and save educational dollars. They have been frustrated that students are not being allowed to take full advantage of this program. The Legislature knows that if they eliminate the funding to public high schools then the high schools won't offer dual enrollment to the students.

Public high schools have generally offered dual enrollment to students on the high school campus, with the community college providing the teacher. The public schools argue that they deserve the FTE for the student because they provide the facilities and support necessary for their students to take these courses, and the students are enrolled in the public school for those classes. Community colleges rightly deserve the FTE for the student, because they provide the instruction. The public schools have controlled dual enrollment opportunities for public school students by allowing them to take only the courses offered on their campus or by allowing them to take dual enrollment courses after school or in the summer at the community college campus. Most of these decisions were made to avoid losing student funding, but there were other contributing factors. I discovered one factor in the law which penalized public school students who took dual enrollment courses. Florida Statute 232.2462 defined one full credit in high school as 150 hours of bona fide instruction and specifically stated that 6 hours of credit earned through dual enrollment would be counted as one full credit in high school. That meant that if a public high school student took French I and French II at the community college it would transfer to the high school as 1 credit. It was ludicrous to count two college courses as one high school credit, but that is precisely what the law stated. It did not affect home schoolers, except the ones that went into high school during the 11th or 12th grade, but it was an inequity in the system. Three years ago, I talked to the Division of Community Colleges about this problem. They did not want to tackle it. The next year I approached them again, and again, and again until they finally went with me to talk to the analyst in the Senate Education Committee. The Analyst said that no one was complaining, so apparently there was no problem and no way to equate the courses. The next year, the 2000 Legislature filed HB 2105 to address some of the problems with dual enrollment.

It required the school districts to offer dual enrollment as a choice to students. It also addressed the credit problem. It required that the state Articulation Coordinating Committee compare course content of high school courses and community college courses and award credit for a high school diploma and community college credit for courses that meet both requirements based solely on course content and not on seat time. The Legislature wanted to make dual enrollment more accessible to public school students. HB 2105 was intended to make dual enrollment student-driven and allow public school students to accelerated their education, just like home education students are currently doing.

The position of the Division of Community Colleges has always been to support home education students. The Division has always told community colleges that the law requires them to provide the same opportunities that are available to public schoolstudents, but there is nothing in the law that prohibits the community colleges from providing greater opportunities. Initially, everyone was apprehensive about home education students coming to take college courses in the 10th or 11th grade, because they were unfamiliar with our students. However, once home educated students began taking classes, the community colleges could see that these were the type of students that theywanted to attract. Now community colleges are actually recruiting home-educatedstudents for dual enrollment, because these students usually stay to complete their AAdegrees. The community colleges are financially rewarded by the Legislature for the number of students who complete their AA degrees.

During the 2001 Legislative Session, HB 1813 was introduced to address the double funding issue of public school students. The Senate did not cut the funding of dualenrollment students to public schools, but the House did, initially. The House was trying to eliminate the funding to public schools for dual enrollment, but they knew this was anissue that would have to be negotiated. This bill only related to the funding that PUBLIC SCHOOLS receive for dually-enrolled students. It did not affect community collegefunding, nor the dual enrollment funding for home-educated students. During thenegotiations between the House and the Senate, the public school funding for dual enrollment was put back into the budget.

For the first time since 1992, community college funding was based on a model which included enrollment as a factor. This means that any student, including dually-enrolledstudents, taking a course at the community college will be counted in the funding model. There was an increase in the program funds, to the community college budget, this year of approximately $24 million.

Community colleges have an open door policy which requires them to admit anyqualified student. If your local community college limits dual enrollment to home educated students in the upcoming year it will be a local decision by the community college board of trustees. There may be a legitimate cap on certain classes, a lack ofunderstanding of the laws related to home educated students or a misunderstanding of the budget. If you have any problems with getting home educated students into dualenrollment, call me. I will try to help you work it out.

Brenda Dickinson

Article pdf

Everything You Want to Know about Florida's Virtual Education

HEF has been sorting out all the variations of s. 1002.45 F.S. which passed in the final days of the 2009 Session.  There was “virtually” no public discussion of the bill, and the conforming bill appeared with the budget 4 days before the end of Session.  Everyone knew there was going to be a bill, but no one knew exactly what was going to be in the legislation until it finally appeared. At that point, the 67 school districts scrambled to create their own virtual instruction program, and the vendors moved at neck-breaking speed to try to beat all the rest to get the contract with the school districts.  It has been challenging to gather the facts and compare all the variations.  The last piece of the puzzle was to work out how home education students who take virtual courses were to be classified by the FHSAA for  extracurricular activities. Here are the facts with the most accurate information that can be discerned for this school year. Things will most likely change again during the 2010 Session, so HEF will keep you apprised.

Read more...

All-County and All-State Music Programs

In 1996 the Legislature passed the "Craig Dickinson Act" Fl.St. 232.425 pertaining to interscholastic extracurricular student activities. As that time, the athletic and music programs were part of the Florida High School Activities Association (FHSAA). In 1997 the Legislature passed a law that would reorganize the FHSAA and made that organization responsible for athletic activities only. During the 1997-98 school year the Florida Music Educators Association (FMEA) took over the responsibility of overseeing public school music activities and created a new organization, similar in structure to FHSAA to do the job. This new organization was incorporated under the name of Florida School Music Association (FSMA). Read more...

Former Homeschooler Tim Tebow Wins The Heisman Award

Great job Tim! Congratulations!

Acceptance speech here

Interview afterward here

Faces of Sports:Tim Tebow-The Chosen One.
Commercial Free DVD's are now available for immediate shipping.
$24.00 which includes First Class shipping and handling.

Please send your name, address and a check made payable and sent to:
Murrah Communications S.O.A.
P.O. Box 2751
Ponte Vedra Beach,FL 32004

Extra Curricular Activities

Home-educated students in Florida have the opportunity to participate in Extracurricular activities. Florida Statutes 232.425, known as the Craig Dickinson Act, guarantees this opportunity. However, this was not always the case. The following is a history of HEF's work toward achieving this goal. Read more

Social Security's New Home School Flow Chart

For some years, the Social Security Administration has permitted home schoolers to receive benefits in some cases. Yet, the agency used a fuzzy test involving several different factors.
Read more about it at:
http://www.hslda.org/elink.asp?ID=531

Stand for Freedom

Some veteran home educators seem to take a firm stand on principles that others don't even recognize as issues. Is it that they are just stubborn, rebellious or cantankerous? Probably not. It's just that they had to live through the history and, like many of the WWII veterans, they had to fight for their freedom. My father and father-in-law both fought in WWII. They tell stories that make it hard for me to imagine what it must have been like to watch a whole platoon die in a matter of hours or to find out that when your plane was shot down only three of the 12-member crew survived. I hear, but since I didn't experience it, I really can't understand.

 Read more...

HOPE Scholarship Tax Credit

Federal legislation allows eligible postsecondary students or their parents to receive tax credit for 100% of the first $1,000 of tuition and fees and 50% of the second $1000 on their federal income tax

• Covers only the first two years of a student's education.
• Covers only tuition and fees, not books, room, board or other expenses.
• Income must not exceed $40,000 (individual) or $80,000 (married filing joint). Tax credit is gradually decreased up to $50,000 ($100,000) modified adjusted gross income. Cannot claim a tax credit above $50,000 ($100,000).
• Student must register for at least 6 hours to be eligible.
• Student must be registered in a program leading to a degree, certificate, or other recognized educational credential.
• Tax is reduced by other types of financial aid, such as the Pell Grant.
• Lifelong Learning Credit may assist with the junior and senior year of college.

More information can be obtained at the following website:
http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96271,00.html

You may also contact your local community college financial aid department for more information.

Safeguarding Home Education Freedoms At A Local Level

Challenges faced on local levels have been varied, and so have the perspectives and methods used by home educating parents who have addressed them. There are several elements, though, that seem to be common to a successful outcome. Read more...

The National Merit Scholarship

The National Merit Scholarship program is a very home school friendly program. It requires a bit of initiative on the part of the parent in seeing that the child takes the proper test at the proper time, and beyond that everything is handled by the National Merit Corporation.
Read more

Learn more about qualifying with this article
What You Need to Know About the National Merit Scholarship

Getting Your Voice Heard

By sharing your opinions and ideas with your representatives and senators in Tallahassee, you help them decide what to do about the issues and pending legislation that affect us all. They value your suggestions and encourage you to express them.

Read more...

Dual Enrollment Book Policy

The question has arisen as to why home education students are required to pay for their own books during dual enrollment. Here is some background

K-20 Education Committee Speech

One of the most important issues to the private sector is our autonomy, independence and non-governmental status. I say this to you because there is a lot of discussion today about accountability. The Constitution requires the State to provide a free system of public education. However, private education is not the responsibility of the State under the Constitution. Read more....