1/21/13 - Students taking online classes at a virtual academy in association with Pinckney Community Schools will be able to finish out the program this year as scheduled. The district has a partnership with a company thatâs provides online curriculum for the program, which was originally intended for mostly home school students but has expanded. The company is able to register individuals as Pinckney students so the district receives the associated per-pupil funding from the state and then basically buys the curriculum. The district stood to lose itâs nearly $7,000 state foundation allowance for 34 students following a pupil enrollment audit. Pinckney Superintendent Dan Danosky says they were working under the same assumptions as last year with the program and there were no problems but the state changed its interpretations this year. He says they were just notified late Friday that the state will approve 25 of the 34 kids for funding, meaning the district will re-enroll all kids in the second semester and absorb the cost of the remaining nine students so they can all complete the program. However, he says it was getting pretty late in the game and they hadnât heard anything about their appeal to the state so Danosky says they started to notify parents and sent a letter home. A certified teacher of record is provided by the company for the virtual academy but the Pinckney district is required to provide mentor teachers, who must make regular contact with the student. The changes being enforced stipulate that contact must be directly between a mentor teacher and student, not with a parent. One week has also now been defined by the state to mean âone calendar weekâ and not a seven-day week. The same audit also deemed that some students attending an online program within the Hartland Consolidated Schools district were also disqualified. Superintendent Jan Sifferman tells WHMI they have yet to hear back from the state on their appeal.(JM)
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