When most people hear the words “virtual school” or “online education,” they still picture 2020: kitchen tables turned classrooms, teachers scrambling to learn Zoom overnight, and students staring at screens while their education stalled.
That experience was exhausting, discouraging—and it was not virtual school. It was emergency remote instruction, and it left a lasting and inaccurate impression on millions of families.
I’ve spent more than a decade working in virtual education. Now, I’ll be leading MiaPrep Online Academy of Ohio, a new online community school serving Ohio students. I know what great virtual education looks like and the results it can yield.
District administrators are in a critical position right now. As enrollment pressures mount and states continue authorizing online community schools, it becomes more essential to understand the online learning landscape.
Technology doesn’t replace great teaching. It multiplies it
True virtual schools did not emerge from the pandemic. They have existed for more than two decades, and they were designed from the ground up to educate students online. The curriculum was already digital. The teachers were already trained for virtual instruction. The systems were already in place for monitoring student progress.
What COVID revealed was not a flaw in virtual education, it revealed how unprepared traditional institutions were to replicate it under pressure.
In a traditional classroom, even the most gifted teacher reaches roughly 100 students in a given school year. A well-designed virtual curriculum changes that equation entirely. A student in rural Ohio and a student in a Columbus suburb can access the same expertly crafted lesson, on their own schedule.
Flexibility without compromising standards
One of the most persistent objections to online schooling is the assumption that flexibility must mean lower expectations. In practice, the opposite can be true.
Asynchronous, mastery-based programs allow students to demonstrate genuine understanding before advancing. If a student doesn’t perform well on an assessment, they don’t simply receive a grade and move on. They revisit the instructional material and reattempt the assessment when they’re ready.
This isn’t a lower bar, it’s a higher standard for what “completing a unit” actually means.
This model particularly serves students who have historically been underserved by the traditional structure: competitive athletes, students managing chronic health conditions, and performing artists.
Support structure is more robust than most people realize
A common misconception about online schooling is that it is a solitary experience. The best-designed virtual schools build in more touchpoints, not fewer.
Every student typically has multiple layers of dedicated support: an adviser tracking weekly progress, certified subject-area teachers holding regular office hours, and a counselor managing graduation pathway requirements.
The impact of that support can be profound. One student I worked with had struggled so severely with anxiety that she had attempted to take her own life before her parents enrolled her in our school. She was shy and withdrawn at first, avoiding contact with staff.
It was her English teacher who finally built a connection with her, gradually earning her trust. Her English grade improved first, and the teacher then helped guide her toward office hours.
By mid-second semester, she was participating in public class chats. Her parents reached out to share how much the experience had changed her daily enjoyment of life.
When online education is well-designed
Ohio is not an outlier. Across the country, families are increasingly seeking flexible, credential-backed alternatives to traditional schooling.
District administrators who are working with families struggling in traditional settings benefit from knowing what virtual options exist. Serving families well sometimes means helping them find the right fit, even when that fit is somewhere else.
Well-designed online public schools offer something the pandemic’s improvised remote learning never could: a complete educational infrastructure built from the ground up, tuition-free, and backed by the same diploma and accountability standards as any other public school.
For district leaders, understanding that distinction is essential to serving the full range of families in their communities.
