Charter School Planning Meeting #6

October 10, 2006

The entire meeting was spent in a conference call with Sue Steiner from Kiel e-school. It was extremely helpful and we learned a great deal-we especially learned how much we still have to learn!


Questions for Conference Call

Are your online courses bought or do you use your own staff?
Ans: They do some of each with 90% of their current classes taught by their own staff. This has occurred as a result of a great deal of staff training initially and ongoing!
Are you an instrumentality or noninstrumentality school?
Ans: Instrumentality in that there are teachers who have not bargained into the union contract
How many courses must a student take before he/she counts as a Kiel district student?
Ans: A student is considered a Kiel student if she/he is fulltime or almost fulltime. However, “fulltime” is a term that each district defines for itself
Can a current Kiel student choose to take classes from the charter school only if it is not already offered in the curriculum?
Ans: A Kiel student can take any online course even if it is offered traditionally in the district. However, all their e-school students have to go through an application and screening process so you don’t get students just trying to find an easy way through (e-classes are NOT easier!) or get out of having a particular teacher
Has the district lost a large number of its current students to the charter school?
Ans: No, not at all!
Even though students aren’t really “lost” to the district, what happens to the teachers if their own classes are smaller?
Ans: No teacher has lost a job because of the e-school (some from declining enrollment or class reductions, but not as a result of the e-school)
How do they get a diploma from Kiel?
Ans: e-school students get same diploma as traditional students-DPI is moving toward recommending an option of an e-school diploma
Do charter school students take the state tests?
Ans: Yes, required
How did you develop coaches and how much of their time was devoted to that?
Didn’t ask
What are the main lessons you have learned-what should we do? What shouldn’t we do?
Ans: Start small and do a lot of homework and early investigations-maybe try out having some students participate in an established school. Be customer service orientated! Go the distance to help students! Kiel has a 92-94% course completion record
Why did you choose to go all year around?
Didn’t ask
You indicate that the key is the local mentor/teacher-tell us about this and what makes it so successful
Ans: This person gets students into courses, orientates them, keeps tabs on progress, and notifies sending school if student isn’t progressing or working.
Interesting that your e-students have access and can participate in all other aspects of your services and district activities-how does that work?
Ans: If counted as a Kiel student, as per district definition, they can participate in everything and WIAA has agreed-If student is from another district and only taking one class, he can’t participate
Explain how you link online learning experiences to life skills and employment opportunities to ensure real world application-was this a foundational decision?
Didn’t ask
How many in your planning team were parents?
Ans: Planning team of 18 with 5 parents (some of whom also represented business, labor, etc-dual role!)

Marcia’s questions:
How is the school paid for classes taken by students?
Ans: Outside schools pay $330 for each student for each class and the home school gets the state aide
Can students drop classes at any time or is there a time restriction?
Ans: 3 weeks to drop
Are classes independent with work to be completed independently or does the student have specific assignments to be completed at regular intervals?
Ans: Lots of variety in assignment and students can operate at a traditional, accelerated or enhanced pace-again, e-school is NOT easy. Note: Currently, 11 semester classes are being offered here through CESA 9’s virtual academy and they only allow 5 months for a student to complete a course!

Rich’s Questions:
How has the “virtual” charter school option affected standard school enrollment?
Ans: There has been no real impact. Most students in e-school are part-time, taking some e-classes along with regular classes and some even above and beyond normal load. There are only 2-3 full-time online Kiel students (usually for extenuating circumstances-health, pregnancy, home school). Only a handful of students come from “open enrollment” as Kiel’s philosophy is that they want to work WITH districts rather than compete with them. Kiel is partnered with Appleton and provides services for 15 other districts and draws students from these districts.
I understand that curriculum software can be purchased and teachers don’t have to be involved in instructional preparations, but rather can act as tutors. If this is correct, approximately how many hours of tutorial support can teachers be expected to be involved in?
Ans: Many of Kiel teachers teach online and it initially takes 40% more time, but it’s just like using a new textbook or having a new course to teach traditionally-the longer you do it, the less extra time it takes. Staff training is a huge component.
Regarding staff response to virtual instruction, are your teachers in favor of this approach or do they see problems looming on the horizon! Specifically, what positives do they see and what problems are they encountering or anticipating?
Ans: There was some concern initially of lost jobs and feeling they were not appreciated for the job they were doing, but what has occurred is that the students and teachers have both benefited. The teacher doesn’t have to deal with a student who has trouble in a traditional setting and the student gets the option of the e-school setting. Some students who do very poorly in traditional setting do very well in e-school.
What has been the response relative to college entrance?
Ans: Many colleges now have online courses and students who have had experience with online prior to college adjust so well. Online classes are not identified on the transcript, but read just like a traditional class

Other points made:
Kiel is a year round school and this allows not only flexibility in the day in terms of when students are online, but also flexibility as to what time of the year classes can be taken
Schools sending students have a supervisory teacher in charge of their students to which the online teacher can have contact
Kiel e-school used Florida Virtual School for many of its initial courses on a contractual basis and now has many of its teachers either using that curriculum or, in some cases, even designing their own! Kiel checked out many vendors before choosing Florida and have had great success with this program. Note: buying a curriculum is VERY expensive as in $36,000-$44,000!!
Have taken expelled students on a case by case basis or offering the e-school as one more chance before expulsion
The best classroom teacher may not make the best online teacher nor does the best classroom student necessarily make the best online student!
Teachers all get calling cards to have more contact with students. They can even arrange face to face and oral tests and lots of communication
Kiel now has over 400 semester course enrollments!
Sue reminded us several times that we are there to help students and she believes this really is a win-win as both teachers and students benefit
Sue is willing to work with us anytime!

Note: I have tried to capture most of what was discussed, though it was all new and fast! If I have written any of this up inaccurately, please let me know and I will make the corrections and send it out again!
Cheerfully submitted: deb Gerard