by Georgia Charter Schools Association
By Krista Kunkle
The classroom is changing.
Just as our marketers are learning to personalize their products, so are our schools. Each child comes from a unique “template,” so schools should be unique, too, and focus on each child’s needs.
More than any time in American history, a child entering grade school is likely to interact with a teacher and peers in a virtual classroom for at least part of the learning experience.
Some states, like Georgia, even have a virtual-learning requirement for student graduation. Each student has to take at least one course online before graduating from high school.
It’s the digital age. It’s mobile. It’s instant—and our children adapt to it naturally. Schools, teachers and parents must adapt as well. In Georgia, there are three virtual charter schools offering free instruction for grades K-12: Provost Academy Georgia, Georgia Cyber Academy, and Georgia Connections Academy, where I work
My school presents the complete instructional day online. In Georgia, we also have “à la carte” options for students who need just one or two courses online, and still other programs offer “blended” models with a physical classroom and teacher utilizing course options from online curriculum. With the new requirement, even traditional brick-and-mortar schools optimize online courses to help students recoup lost credits, move them ahead, and gain college credits.
The reality is that schools now adapt to even more student templates, thanks to “digital learning,” and they can meet any level of interaction with a child at any location (traditional, home, mobile) to offer a complete learning experience that results in a diploma. Education is no longer tied to place. It is tied to service: How do we as teachers meet a child’s unique needs and turn their dreams into daily realities?
The benefits of where I work are the excellent education, the customer-service focus of the highly qualified teachers, and greater accessibility to a child in any county, whether in a rural area in the southern part of the state or the urban neighborhoods of Atlanta.
Once they are acclimated, many students are able to accelerate their learning and course rigor beyond their local option and then choose to stick with online virtual education. They can also take advantage of Dual Enrollment programs that complement and enhance the Advanced Placement courses Georgia Connections Academy offers as a SACS-accredited virtual charter school.
Students and families benefit when they take college-level courses after they have breezed through high school classes. Why not graduate high school with college hours already completed so they can study in their career field even sooner? That’s what turns those dreams into goals and the goals into reality.
Some call this revolution the K-20 mashup. The lines between high school and college are increasingly blurred for advanced learners. That’s a good thing.
We need talented children to be motivated to excel rather than remolded to fit a specific cookie cutter.
The bottom line is that a virtual education allows me to tailor that classroom experience to the student in front of me—the advanced learner, the child who needs more attention than what’s received in a local classroom, the child who needs flexibility to fit a professional sports or entertainment schedule, and the child who simply needs a quiet place to work without the distractions of a classroom.
It’s these educational choices that are making virtual learning a leading option for students, parents and educators. I’m blessed to be part of it.
Krista Kunkle is a high-school language-arts teacher at Georgia Connections Academy, an online K-12 charter school serving students statewide. She is the school’s current High School Teacher of the Year.
The views and opinions expressed on CharterConfidential are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any agency.
Georgia Charter Schools Association
The Georgia Charter Schools Association (GCSA) is the membership organization for Georgia’s charter school operators and petitioners, established in 2001. Our mission is to be an effective advocate and service provider for all charter public schools in Georgia.
