New online juvenile program loses charter

The Porter County Sheriff’s Department is checking to make sure students are doing their schoolwork in a partnership with an online charter school that’s losing its charter.

On Feb. 26, the Porter County Board of Commissioners and the County Council made the required votes so the sheriff ’s department could receive payments of what Sheriff David Reynolds said are $3,000 a month. The vote came within a day of when the Daleville School Board, which authorizes the charter, voted to revoke it because of what a school official called “a pattern of noncompliance.”

The Daleville board voted Feb. 25 to revoke charters for Indiana Virtual Schools and the Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy. The sheriff ’s department’s contract is with the academy, which according to the Indiana Department of Education website had a graduation rate of 2.2 percent last year.

Academy officials have assured Reynolds the program is not in jeopardy and they are searching for a new authorizer, he said.

“It was funded by the state. We

thought it was a good program to get involved in, whatever we can do to get kids educated,” he said.

Councilman Jeremy Rivas, D-2nd, was the lone holdout on voting for the program. He’s not in favor of using the county’s public safety resources to chase down students who are supposed to be studying online.

He said it “didn’t pass the smell test.”

“I wasn’t comfortable with it then and with more information coming out, I’m more uncomfortable about it now,” he said.

Phillip Holden, director of Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy, did not return a call for comment.

A Daleville school official said in a release that the district was disappointed by the outcome but their primary concern is doing what’s in the best interest of students.

“Once it became clear that there was a pattern of noncompliance by both schools, we were compelled to act swiftly and decisively,” Daleville Superintendent Paul Garrison said in a release.

The closure protocol, according to the release, provides the schools a public meeting to respond to the school board’s recommendation to revoke the charters. The school board will then have a week to deliberate and vote on its conclusion. Once the final decision is made, the district will facilitate closure. The charters have one year to find another authorizer.

The sheriff’s department joined the new program offered through the virtual academy in December, Reynolds said.

“If you don’t turn on your computer and you sign up for this thing, you’re considered truant and not in school,” Reynolds said, adding his department has received payments of $3,000 a month so far.

Porter County has 320 students in the program and 60 were considered truant, Reynolds said. One of them, an 18-year-old, was found in the Porter County Jail and Reynolds discovered a few lived in Lake County, but the county is down to 30 students considered truant under the program.

Students are not courtordered into the program and instead enroll online on their own, he said. He did not have a breakdown of how many students from each district in the county are participating.

“Our detectives and our patrol guys like the idea of talking to these kids and seeing what’s going on,” Reynolds said, adding any money raised by the program will go toward education, training and equipment for the sheriff ’s department.

Porter County is one of three counties in the program; the others are Hendricks and Madison.

Students enrolled in the program receive diplomas from their home school districts, he added.

“We looked at this from all different directions and didn’t see any downside. Anything that provides education t o kids who wouldn’t otherwise be in school, what else are they going to do?” Reynolds said. “It may not be the quality of an education at Chesterton, Portage or Valparaiso, but it’s better than nothing.”

The Portage Township Schools said in a statement that it is not affiliated with, nor does it use, the Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy.

It offers its students access to online course options that satisfy the district’s requirements to receive a Portage High School diploma, and uses a platform that “allows us to work with students and their families to make decisions that are in the best interest of each child,” according to Melissa DeaversLowie, the district’s director of communications.

In all, upwards of 600 students are enrolled in the virtual academy between the three counties signed up so far, said Steve Ohlheiser, its student engagement program man- ager.

Another 14 or so counties are about to start the program, he said, adding his goal is to have all 92 counties on board.

Almost 40 percent of the students are “troubled kinds” who have been disciplined or removed from traditional schools, he added.

“One of the primary goals of this school is to help students get high school diplomas who wouldn’t otherwise,” said Ohlheiser, adding he retired in September after a 25-year career in law enforcement to help with the program.

The amount of money a county receives can vary month-to-month depending on the number of students who are enrolled.

“The correlation between educational attainment and crime is astounding,” Ohlheiser said before launching into a plethora of statistics, including that 75 percent of the crime nationwide is committed by high school dropouts, and noting that a 5 percent increase in the number of high school graduates across the country would save $360 million a year because of a decrease in crime.

He had little to say about the possibility of the school’s charter being revoked.

“I hope not,” he said. “It’s above me. I’m just the street-level program manager.”

Students who qualify for the program are provided laptops and officials track when they log on and do their s c h o o l wo r k , Ohlheiser said. When that doesn’t happen, officials from the virtual school attempt to contact the students via email and cellphone, and then by certified letter.

Use of county deputies comes after those attempts to contact a student have failed.

“It’s one last ditch effort to try to engage these students,” he said.

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.