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Can a Virtual School Work for your Child?

July 17, 2014
There are new, successful alternatives in education. Maize Virtual Preparatory School (MVPS), a state-wide program, offers a virtual education for students in Kindergarten through Tenth grade. 

MVPS utilizes the world-renowned Calvert curriculum for Grades K-8. As an Honors High School, the MVPS Leadership Academy, Grades 9-11, provides an engaging and rigorous program for accelerated learners.

How does Virtual School differ from a traditional brick and mortar school?

The most obvious difference is the venue. Instead of getting up every morning, rushing for the bus, scrambling for the notebooks, the school day begins from the relaxing atmosphere of home. Utilizing a blended approach, children and parents log-in to their learning portal from their home computer and click on that day’s assignments. Traditional textbooks are used, along with engaging, supplemental, online activities, which reinforce learning.

What about support?

MVPS has created a partnership between parents, students, MVPS teachers and Calvert Education Counselors. Maize students receive support and instruction from each of these areas. 

The Learning Guide, often a parent or grandparent, works with the child from home. They review daily objectives, prepare materials for the day’s lessons, monitor task completion, and provide direction and assistance as needed.

Then there is the MVPS, Kansas-certified teacher. The MVPS teacher develops a personal relationship with each family and works directly with parents to set curriculum pacing goals and ensure mastery of subjects. The MVPS teacher’s role extends beyond goal setting, to include supplemental live instruction, parent/teacher conferences, planning field trips, coaching and implementing enrichment activities. Enrichment clubs have included Mystery Theater, Robotics, Poetry Club and Prepositional Photography.

Calvert’s Education Counselors are also expert curriculum specialists, working alongside the Learning Guide and MVPS teacher to provide curricular support and alternative teaching strategies. Families benefit from a strong support system within the MVPS community.

Why are parents choosing Virtual School?

Many parents today are looking for a way to have greater flexibility and involvement in their child’s education. A virtual education offers that. Students receive individualized, rigorous curriculum. Families are personally involved and able to experience the “aha moments” of learning, such as watching their child read his first word or conquering math facts. One MVPS student shares the best thing about being in a virtual program, “I am excited to be able to be home, spending time with my family. We are growing closer together.”

Additionally, MVPS provides everything needed to educate a child at home. A laptop computer (on loan), individualized Calvert curriculum with textbooks, manuals, and math manipulatives are supplied. Printed lesson manuals are easy-to-use and written with daily lesson plans.

Does it really work?

The International Association for K–12 Online Learning, (iINACOL) cites a U.S. Department of Education study that states, “Students who took all or part of their classes online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.”

The Calvert curriculum, chosen by Maize, has a 100-year history of educating children in all 50 states and over 100 countries. A classic, rigorous education, Calvert students place grade levels above other distance learning counterparts. According to an independent study, even in a mid-year evaluation, Calvert students had advanced as much as 1.8 grades ahead of a non-Calvert control group in literacy and were also ahead of the curve in Geometry and Algebra. 

More choices

Now, more than ever, parents have more choice and more involvement in their children’s education. Many of them are choosing to embrace a committed, rigorous community, such as MVPS, to provide a solid, 21st Century Education for their family.

Visit Maize Virtual Preparatory School or call (316) 462-8800 to speak directly with an Enrollment Specialist. Applications are being accepted through Monday, August 4th.