Just 2 percent of students on Henrico Virtual Academy waitlist accepted into program

A total of 1,519 students now will be enrolled in the fully virtual K-12 "school," a program for which students were required to commit for the entire school year. That number includes new spots for 64 elementary school students – or about 2 percent of the 3,035 students on the HVA waitlist when it closed Aug. 25. Expanding the program even by just a few dozen was “no small task,” according to Henrico Schools spokesman Andy Jenks.

HVA's enrollment total makes it one of the division’s largest programs. The new seats for elementary students became available when some elementary staff members shifted to teaching virtually. HCPS wasn’t able to shift middle and high school teachers to the program, according to Jenks, because of staffing needs at those levels.

In addition to adding 64 elementary students to HVA, HCPS offered another 543 waitlisted students full-time virtual seats for elementary learners at Virtual Virginia, an online program run by the Virginia Department of Education. On Friday, the VDOE also offered an additional 90 middle and high school seats to HCPS.

If any of those 633 students do not accept a spot at Virtual Virginia, HCPS will continue to make offers all the way through the HVA waitlist, Jenks said.

Some parents caught off-guard

The remaining students – more than 2,330 – who didn’t get a spot at HVA or at Virtual Virginia “are being welcomed to their home school for in-person learning,” Jenks said. “We also shared options for homeschool instruction, should a family want to go that route, though we hope they will choose to remain with us.”

But for the thousands who didn’t get accepted, there's less than a week to make plans for the school year.

Aneesha Johnson was shocked on Monday when she received an email from HCPS notifying her that her son did not get a spot at the fully virtual school. School starts on Wednesday, and she hadn't made other plans.

“They told us at the last minute,” Johnson said. “I didn't expect them to deny him since I signed up in May.”

The school division worked to accommodate students based on health needs, according to Jenks. Johnson said her son has a health condition, but she can’t afford to go to the doctor to get a note.

"The last day to put your kids in homeschool, was the day before the denial (notice)," Johnson said. "So I did not have time to set up homeschooling and take all the accurate steps."

Johnson is now in a precarious situation. She doesn’t want her son to attend his zoned school, Highland Springs High, because of safety concerns related to COVID-19 and health conditions that affect her and her son. But she also fears legal consequences that may occur because it will take some time to set up homeschooling.

"My son was in virtual learning his ninth grade year, tenth grade year, and of course [I wanted him] in his tenth grade year to do virtual learning," Johnson said. "Unfortunately, I found out in August that it was going to be a random pick list."

Had Johnson known months before, she would've had time to set up homeschooling, she said.

"I tried to do whatever I was told to do," she said. "I was calling and calling and calling the school. No one would pick up so one day I went up there to go withdraw my son."

When Johnson arrived at Highland Springs High, many other parents were there in the same situation trying to do the same thing, she said.

Growing demand

The initial application process for HVA closed in May, after which officials indicated that more than 1,700 K-12 students had been accepted into it. (It's unclear why that number decreased to the final enrollment of 1,519.)

But when HCPS reopened the HVA waitlist in August after the school division announced a mask optional policy, hundreds of families added students to it. Even after the Henrico School Board reversed that policy on Aug. 12, thousands more students were added to the waitlist amid fears of the spread of the delta variant, especially among children who are too young to be vaccinated at this time.

HCPS is funding the spots in Virtual Virginia, so those courses are available to families free of charge. The school division also is assigning mentors to the Virtual Virginia students who will act as liaisons, ensuring that students have what they need to begin with Virtual Virginia and be successful throughout the school year, Jenks said. Like HVA, the Virtual Virginia commitment will be for one year.

In the new arrangement with the Virtual Virginia, students will not be enrolled in their home schools, but still will be “associated” with them, which means they “count” in terms of enrollment in HCPS. There’s no impact on the funding formula, so per-pupil funding remains the same for the school division.

During the regular enrollment period earlier this summer, HCPS had requested about 600 Virtual Virginia spots, because at that time there were about 600 students on the HVA waitlist, Jenks said.

There are 18,322 students statewide signed up for Virtual Virginia for the upcoming school year, compared with 15,604 last school year and 9,028 in the 2019-2020 school year, according to VDOE spokesman Charles Pyle.

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Anna Bryson is the Henrico Citizen's education reporter and a Report for America corps member. Make a tax-deductible donation to support her work, and RFA will match it dollar for dollar.