Enrollment is increasing for an online K through 12 school in Massachusetts entering its second year.TEC Connections Academy Commonwealth Virtual School or TECCA is a full-time, public, tuition-free school that allows students to complete coursework anywhere with an internet connection. Students still take state mandated exams. Interim principal Danielle Brunson says one of the main reasons students are enrolled in the school is because parents want to be more involved in their child’s education.
“At TECCA we have what we call the triangle model,” Brunson said. “So at all three points we have 1) the student and our curriculum where they go to school with all of their lessons online 2) our state-certified teachers that are all highly qualified and certified in the subjects they teach meaning you won’t have a math teacher instructing science and 3) the learning coach who is normally a parent or somebody else in the family.”
Knowing what her granddaughter Cassidy was learning was part of the reason Susannah Babcock suggested TECCA as an alternative to Capeless Elementary in Pittsfield.
“Every day I would pick her up from school and the teacher would always say ‘Well she’s not with everyone else, she’s not at the benchmark,’” Babcock explained. “It wasn’t that she wasn’t a smart kid, but she didn’t read or work like everybody else. So I started looking for things where she could have a little bit more creative and learn her own way.”
Brunson says hockey players or kids involved in sports that are not affiliated with a traditional school, like equestrian, enroll in TECCA because of its flexibility in the face of frequent travel and other time commitments. She says kids who may have been bullied or don’t enjoy the social atmosphere of school also seek out the online school. Brunson says about two-thirds of the 550 students from its inaugural class were high schoolers. She expects that ratio to hold as they estimate about 900 students for the upcoming school year.
The curriculum is delivered through textbooks mailed to the students and a web-cam equipped program called LiveLessons.
Babcock says the lessons, which are also recorded, are easy for caregivers to follow along with, adding that she has a better relationship with the online teachers than those in a traditional school.
“I wanted to talk to the teacher, but the last year was awful,” Babcock said. “I hardly ever got to talk to the teacher and really try to get down to nitty gritty of what’s going on. So when I call up, they may be busy at that moment, but they’ll always call me back. I feel it’s a much better relationship with the teachers.”
Brunson says the school has 10 high school teachers and four each for special education, middle school and elementary school. TECCA is part of the Baltimore-based Connections Academy, which supports online schools across the country. The Bay State’s first such school, the Massachusetts Virtual Academy of Greenfield, opened in 2010 and was affiliated with the city’s public school district. It reorganized in 2013 to become the Massachusetts Virtual Academy at Greenfield Commonwealth Virtual School supported by Virginia-based K12, Inc. In October 2014 the Massachusetts Board of Secondary and Elementary Education placed the school, which also has rising enrollment figures, on probation after the department raised concerns about the school’s academic program and compliance with regulatory requirements.
Local school districts pay $6,700 a year for a student who chooses to attend either of the virtual schools.
A 2013 report by the National Education Policy Center finds that full-time virtual schools have a track record of students falling behind yet states continue to open more at high costs to taxpayers. The report’s authors conclude that continued rapid expansion is unwise.
Finally, Brunson says the school offers field trips at least twice a month and an in-person graduation to encourage social connections.
“Our teachers plan those field trips just as if they would in a traditional brick and mortar school,” Brunson said. “The difference is that the whole family normally ends. The learning coach, the student and if there are siblings enrolled or not they can come along as well.”
