A Georgia Perspective on Clarks' Seven Categories for Virtual Schools

 For this posting I tried to find as many examples from Georgia and / or the surrounding region as I could that seemed to fit Clark’s Categories for Virtual Schools. The list below shows an example of each.

1.)  Georgia Virtual School can be categorized as a “state sanctioned” / “state based” school as it is a program operated by the Georgia Department of Education’s Office of Technology Services. This program has course offerings in not only core areas but also includes AP classes as well.
http://www.gavirtualschool.org/

2.)  Stanford University offers high school students an opportunity to receive a diploma from their online high school. The instruction offered “combines seminar-style and directed-study courses on a flexible college-style class schedule, both encourages independence, discipline, and strong time-management skills and allows our students to pursue their diverse interests and exceptional talents,” ("An overview of," ). This school would fall under the category of a “college and university based” virtual school.
http://epgy.stanford.edu/ohs/

3.)  Although Spartanburg County Public Virtual School uses curriculum designed by K12, I feel a case may be made this system falls under the category of consortium and regionally-based school. It is apparent from the Spartenburg County website much collaboration is being done within the seven county districts.
http://www.spartanburg6.k12.sc.us/parentsandstudents/onlineresources/spartanburgcountypublicvirtualschool.aspx

4.)  Metropolitan Nashville Public School Virtual School is an example of a “local education agency-based” school. According to their website students enrolled in this school are taught by Metropolitan Nashville Public School teachers.
http://vlearn.mnps.org/site240.aspx

5.)  An example of a “virtual charter school” in Georgia would be Georgia Connections Academy which serves students K-12.
http://www.connectionsacademy.com/georgia-school/home.aspx

6.)  Eagle’s Landing Christian Academy is a “private virtual school” which offers both credit recovery, enrichment and college-prep programs.
http://www.elcaonline.org/801047

7.)   In the county where I work our high school students use Apex Learning for credit recovery. Apex Learning may be classified as “for-profit providers of curricula, content, tools.” We pay Apex for each “seat” to allow our students to use their curriculum.
http://www.apexlearning.com/

An overview of the online high school. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://epgy.stanford.edu/ohs/overview.html