shoaglund's blog

Here's a video created by one of our UTVA families and posted on our Facebook wall today -- it's too good not to share…..

Hear first hand from a student, who attended one of the top elementaries in Utah, what it's like to attend a public online school. He goes at his own pace, setting higher standards for himself, instead of being held back students who just aren't getting it, or teachers who do not have the time to concentrate on the accomplishments of one student.

One of the questions asked by many families looking into online high school is "Are the ceremonies in person?"  A high school graduation ceremony is an important rite of passage for all students, whether they go to school online or attend a brick-and-mortar. Here's some information about local graduation ceremonies held by some of our partner schools across the country. 

To all of our 2011 High School graduates -- Congratulations!

K¹² Week Summer Reading Challenge Week 1 

Leave a comment on this weekly challenge post with the following:

• Book Title
• Genre
• Age Category
• A short review

Kristen Kinney, a K¹² senior content specialist, wrote in a reading related post, “low reading scores in lower grades correlate to low performance in upper grades.” With that in mind, and being inspired by The Book Whisperer and her recent reading challenge, I went ahead and created a summer reading challenge just for K¹² families.

Introducing the K¹² Week Summer Reading Challenge

Here’s how it works:

Although many people think of Memorial Day as the unofficial start of summer, it's important that we don't lose sight of the real reason it was created - to remember the men and women who died while in the military service.

Congratulations to Jack D., a sixth-grader at Virginia Virtual Academy , and his fellow team members, who took first place in their age category in the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision Awards, the world’s largest science and technology competition for grades K to 12. Beating out 4,345 other entries, the students will each receive a $10,000 U.S. Savings Bond.

One of the first questions parents ask when researching online public schools is "how does it work?". I think this video, made for Colorado Virtual Academy, an online, virtual public school (tuition-free) available in Colorado, does a great job of conveying the experience.