Virtual school options if you don’t want your kid back in the classroom.

Options for virtual school are available

The long-awaited decisions have finally come: Broward and Palm Beach County students will not be able to learn with their classroom teacher from home next year. Everyone is supposed to be back in the school building for face-toface learning.

But many families have come to prefer online education and don’t want to give it up. They say it allows their children to be safe from the COVID-19 pandemic, which could still be raging when the next school year begins in August.

Parent Carrie Blasi said her daughter, Emma, a sixth grader, got a great remote education this year from Don Estridge High Tech Middle School in Boca Raton and believes the school systems are making these decisions for next year too early.

“I think it’s a mistake to make everyone go back, with the new variants coming in,” Blasi said. “But I’ll start researching the other choices because the virtual schools are going to fill up and I don’t want to be the last one at the party.”

For families looking for virtual education through Florida’s public school systems, there are several options for children to learn from home. Fortunately, most deadlines are still weeks or months away, allowing time for research and brainstorming.

Florida Virtual School

The statewide, tuitionfree online program, based in Orlando, has seen a 98 percent increase in applications to its full-time school since the pandemic began, spokeswoman Tania Clow said. Applications to its Flex programs, which allow part-time study, have also increased, although final numbers are not available yet.

In FLVS’s full-time program, students learn on a traditional 180-day school calendar with state certified teachers and get a Florida Virtual School diploma when they graduate. There are live and recorded sessions and frequent contacts with teachers, who communicate by phone, email and text.

Although students participate from all over the state, FLVS Full Time offers some school activities and events. Elementary and middle school students write morning announcements and high school students have a news show. Before the pandemic, there were monthly meetups by county as well as a Grad Bash and a graduation ceremony for seniors, held in Central Florida.

There’s even a mascot, the Megabyte, to make students feel more connected to this online world.

The other option, FLVS Flex, allows students to enroll at any time and take one course or multiple courses as a supplement to homeschooling or other schooling.

Enrollment for the fulltime program opens in May. Go to flvs.net for more information.

Broward Virtual School, Palm Beach Virtual School, Miami-Dade Online Academy

These are free local franchises of the state FLVS program. Teachers are based in your county and work on the same August to May schedule as the local school district. However, students are no longer enrolled in their previous schools and can lose their spots in specialized schools, such as magnet or choice programs they entered through a lottery or an audition.

In the Broward elementary program, the parent has to agree to be the child’s “learning coach,” grade the child’s work and report back to the teacher each week, Principal Christopher McGuire said. The elementary curriculum is based in traditional textbooks and not as technology-focused as middle and high school, he said.

Although space in Broward Virtual has traditionally been limited, Superintendent Robert Runcie said, the school district is looking for ways to expand it. He said the district will survey parents to see how much demand there may be. Broward Virtual has run out of space in the past few years and has referred elementary students to Miami-Dade’s program, Miami-Dade Online Academy, which is open to Broward students.

The application process in Broward began April 2. For elementary students, the deadline is July 18, while there’s no deadline yet for older students. Go to bved. net for more information.

Enrollment for Palm Beach Virtual School is also open; there’s no deadline yet, although the school district says registration information will be sent via e-mail starting in June. Go to palmbeachschools.org/ students_parents/palm_ beach_virtual_school.

Enrollment in MiamiDade Online Academy opened March 1. Go to mdo. dadeschools.net.