virtual learning

Students and faculty members at the Academy of Information Technology & Engineering met faculty from other school districts this week to discuss the school's online learning program. The program, run by the Virtual High School Collaborative, provides the magnet school with several hundred courses for students to take from teachers across the globe, including 21 advanced placement courses.

Each morning, students head to classrooms to learn the day's lessons, but one school is providing children with the same education in a different environment. California Virtual Academies, or CAVA, provides students with the same K12 curriculum they'd have in a public school, but they access it online.

A new state law, signed in January, which establishes Commonwealth virtual schools, would have required the locally run academy to be overseen by the state, like a charter school.

Legislators and educators applauded the benefits of virtual schools at a Thursday seminar, praising the innovation that allows students to learn at their own pace and take advantage of technology in the classroom.