Virtual schools can serve students with special needs—and do it well

The pandemic brought special education to the forefront of the dialogue about education, with the media focus primarily directed at sharing stories of trainees separated from the in-school assistances that they had actually come to trust, and moms and dads struggling to plug the gaps.

” When I first began dealing with trainees essentially, I was skeptical that the healing environment might be replicated online,” said Robin Corder, EdS, NCSP, who won the Idaho School Psychologist of the Year Award in 2020. “I was really incorrect about that.”

While the challenges were undeniable, there was also a more silently growing chorus of stories from parents whose children experienced virtual education for the very first time and discovered that the personalization and environmental stability it brought resulted in positive results. When it pertains to serving students with impairments, a totally virtual school experience might, at the start, look like a less than perfect or perhaps an improbable idea. However there can be engaging advantages.

As an entire, moms and dads frequently mention flexibility, benefit, the capability to focus, and reductions in bullying, health risks, and social anxiety as factors for picking virtual schools. With more districts using virtual choices for families, serving children with impairments must be at the top of their concerns, and its worth underscoring what can be gained from the infrastructure and experiences of established virtual designs.

Setting Standards for Virtual Schools

While the difficulties were undeniable, there was also a more silently growing chorus of stories from moms and dads whose children experienced virtual education for the very first time and found that the customization and environmental stability it brought led to favorable results. When it comes to serving trainees with impairments, a totally virtual school experience might, at the outset, appear like a less than perfect or even an unlikely principle. There can be engaging advantages.

Kate Eberle Walker is a CEO, author, and working mom. She is the CEO of
PresenceLearning, the leadingprovider of live, online unique education-related services for K-12 schools.She is an education industry leader with 20-plus years of experience managing, encouraging, getting, and buying education companies, and the author ofthe brand-new book,
The Good Boss: NineWays Every Manager Can Support Women at Work.

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Research study associates roughly 40 percent of the enrollment drop in standard public schools to the matching boost in enrollment in established virtual school programs.

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