Franklin County Schools is moving forward with its plans for a Virtual Learning Academy next year.
The FCS school board approved the creation of 12 teaching positions for the academy at its meeting Monday.
“This is the result of COVID and the situation that we dealt with this year,” FCS Superintendent Mark Kopp said. “What we decided to do to lessen the burden of our teachers who were having to do both things is to create a virtual academy for students and parents who wish for the students to remain in a virtual setting.”
The board approved hiring four instructors each for high school, middle school and elementary school, and they would be paid through federal CARES Act funds.
“We won’t hire all 12 positions if we don’t need them,” said Sharla Six, assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment. “So if we don’t accept a certain number of students, we’ll only hire the number of teachers we need to adequately service those kids.”
As of Monday, 166 students or their families had completed the interest survey for the Virtual Learning Academy.
They included 68 elementary students, 38 middle school students and 60 high school students.
Six, in a report to the board, said the reasons for interest in the academy have included health concerns of the student and/or family members, preference of virtual learning, refusal to wear a mask and citing positive aspects of this year’s virtual experience.
Students will have to apply for the Virtual Learning Academy, and Six said the application is being developed.
“What we want to ensure is that students who have not participated this year virtually, they’re most likely not going to be accepted into this Virtual Learning Academy,” Six said.
“The requirement is that they needed to show success this year. It’s fine if a parent and a family say ‘oh, my student was successful with virtual learning,’ but then their records do not indicate the same. So we’re just going to do a double check of those things and make sure we have those things in place.”
Kopp said the Virtual Learning Academy has allowed positions to be created, and those affected by positions being eliminated next year could apply for positions at the Virtual Learning Academy.
Virtual instructors would be located in school buildings, but which buildings haven’t been determined.
“Also, we want to bring them together as a community and a family, and there will be some face-to-face opportunities for them,” Six said about students in the Virtual Learning Academy. “They don’t necessarily have to be required, but we intend to build a community with this online Virtual Learning Academy and we hope we can be successful. We think some kids have done really well in this environment.”
Six said the district plans to advertise the Virtual Learning Academy.
“There might be some homeschool families who choose to enroll in Franklin County Schools because this is a viable option for their family,” she said. “So we might gain some enrollment.”
Six also reported on a survey for a supplemental year for 2021-22. Senate Bill 128, which was signed into law last month by Gov. Andy Beshear, allows students in K-12 to repeat a grade after a year dominated by virtual learning in most districts because of COVID.
Students and their families have until May 1 to let districts know if they want to take advantage of a supplemental year, and school boards will decide by June 1 if they’re going to accept all or none of the requests.
Districts accepting the requests would have until June 16 to submit plans to the state on how supplemental instruction would be provided.
Six said the district has received 89 responses to the survey. The breakdown is 60 elementary school students, 11 middle school students, 36 high school students and two surveys that appeared to be filled out by people not interested in the supplemental year.
Six’s report said only one response cited athletics as a reason for a supplemental year. Other reasons given were special needs of students and the desire to repeat a grade level because of COVID.
In other business:
• Kopp said the Kentucky Horse Park has increased its capacity for graduation to 35% at Alltech Arena. That will mean graduating seniors from Franklin County and Western Hills will be allowed between six and eight tickets each for their graduation ceremony. The exact number hasn’t been determined.
• The board approved the creation of summer school positions. Kopp said the intent is for the positions to be filled by current staff members who will be paid an extra-duty stipend that was previously approved by the board, but that part-time temporary staff may need to be hired to provide services for all students.
The positions created were 15 teacher positions at $31.25 per hour, 15 instructional aide positions at $20.83 per hour, 25 bus driver positions at $24 per hour, and 10 bus monitor positions at $16 per hour.
The positions listed would be paid from CARES funds.
• The board approved a Steadmantown Lane sanitary sewer easement. The easement is needed for an adjoining property to the maintenance department, and it will not have a negative impact on the FCS maintenance facility.
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