Durango School District plans to launch an online learning program next year.
The new program, which will be operated through Colorado Digital Learning Solutions, was announced this month during a Board of Education work session at Park Elementary School.
“Students (may make) this choice for a variety of reasons: maybe anxiety, maybe they travel a lot, or maybe they’re a professional athlete,” said Superintendent Karen Cheser. “... The great thing about this system (is that) students would be connected to the school, and those families would be connected to the school as opposed to (doing) something separate.”
The district has lost more than 330 students to external online school programs, said Executive Director of Finance Kira Horenn.
Cheser said the district will be able to retain and bolster its per-pupil revenue if students choose the district’s online program instead of external virtual schools.
The online program will be open enrollment, Cheser said, meaning students outside Durango will be able to enroll.
Nearly 200 students from communities outside Durango are open-enrolled in the district’s brick-and-mortar schools, Horenn said.
Cheser described the format as “not an online school, not a separate school, but an online program.”
Several online programs already serve Southwest Colorado students, including Southwest Colorado eSchool, Colorado Connections Academy, Colorado Virtual Academy and Colorado Digital Academy.
The district’s program will allow students to access courses such as Latin, German and STEM classes that are not currently available through the brick-and-mortar model, Cheser said.
Robert Aspen, an academic adviser at Durango High School, will run the online program, Cheser said.
An amendment to district policy put in place by Cheser on March 6 states that full- or part-time online students will proceed through their online courses outside of the school building under the guidance of a Certified Online Mentor Teacher. Attendance in the program will be tracked through participation in asynchronous internet-based educational activities within the Learning Management System as documented on a corresponding student login report.
Another section of the policy describes “student contact days” and “E-learning,” which may include attending class synchronously at a scheduled time set by the teacher and “engaging in any new assignment/or alternative demonstrations of learning.”
The policy specifies that online students are expected to complete an equivalent amount of learning time as students in brick-and-mortar schools.
At the meeting, officials did not specify which grades the program will serve, whether instructors will be hired within the district or contracted externally, or whether the program will create additional costs for the district.
“We’re in the planning stages of a new online learning option that we believe will expand opportunities for students and families,” district spokeswoman Karla Sluis told The Durango Herald in an email Monday. “Because the program is still being developed, details are not finalized yet, and we want to be careful not to share incomplete information. Once the planning process is further along, we look forward to sharing more about the program and how it will support students.”
epond@durangoherald.com
