ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — This Friday is the deadline for parents in St. Johns County to let the school district know which option they are selecting for their children this upcoming school year.
If you plan to send your children back to their brick-and-mortar school, you don't need to do anything. But if you want to do school-based distance learning, home school or St. Johns Virtual School, you have to let the district know by July 17.
"Students who take distance learning, they are still technically a student in St. Johns County at their zoned school," Nigel Pillay, Principal of St. Johns Virtual School, explained. "...When you are a student who signs up for St. Johns Virtual School, while you are a student in St. Johns County, you're not a student of your zoned school. You become a student of St. Johns Virtual. It has a different platform. All the standards are the same, but the sequence and scope are different."
St. Johns Virtual School uses the same platform and curriculum as Florida Virtual School, but all of the teachers are part of the St. Johns County School District. Pillay says full-time students can expect to spend between three-to-five hours a day online working and learning in the St. Johns Virtual School platform.
Kindergarten through fifth grade students meet online with their teacher twice a week via Zoom. For middle and high school teachers, it's more self-guided, but teachers are usually available from 8 a.m until 8 p.m.
St. Johns Virtual School has seen a huge increase in the number of students signed up to attend in August, and Pillay said they've already hired seven new teachers to meet the demand.
"At the end of last year, we had 151 full-time students. Where we sit today, K through 12, I’m at 557 full-time students, so you can see that's a substantial increase of almost three-and-a-half times the number of students. As of this morning, we had 1,710 applications in total," Pillay said.
Not everyone who applies is guaranteed a spot. Pillay said they want to ensure they're setting children up for success and take into consideration things like attendance history, behavior and grades.
"When you look at the standardized testing data, if they are non-proficient readers, the online learning platform is very rigorous. It's very reading heavy,” Pillay explained. “I mean if you have students that are struggling with reading many times, they tend to have a hard time navigating and just managing their way through the level of reading in the rigor and understanding and just being able to be successful.”
The ideal candidate for St. Johns Virtual School is a student who is organized, fairly self-reliant and disciplined, and they must commit to at least one semester, Pillay said.
"That child has to really be the one to take on the responsibility," Pillay said. "Yes, we have our parents at home. Yes, you do have the teachers that are available, but there is a large piece of it that is really on the student."