More than half of students registered for Henrico Virtual Academy live in Fairfield, Varina districts

When the school bells ring on Sept. 8, the vast majority of Henrico County Public Schools students will be walking down their school hallways, filling up their lockers and catching up with friends in the school cafeteria.

But more than 1,700 of the district’s students will remain at home receiving virtual education.

Henrico Virtual Academy, the district’s first online school, will open this fall.

The year of COVID-19 changed the minds of many who wouldn't have normally considered remote learning.

Audra Vanderland, the parent of an incoming high school freshman, said that her daughter isn’t always the first person who comes to mind when people think of a good candidate for virtual school, because she has multiple disabilities. There are more support needs involved. But she has thrived in online learning over the past year.

“She's just been able to be much more engaged in answering questions and communicating with her class and making progress with her IEP goals in ways she hasn't before at the same kind of rate, so she was very successful,” Vanderland said. “She’s in an environment she's really familiar with, with people who really, deeply, deeply know her, like health needs and things like that.”

Vanderland said that her daughter’s traditional school tried to meet her needs — but schools are just busy environments. There are different kinds of lighting and sounds, and lots of people. It was a sensory overload.

“She would spend a lot of her time trying to regulate her sensory system, and (that’s) a percentage of her attention she can't spend on learning. At home, the environment is very small, it's only her family,” Vanderland said. “She doesn't have to expend all of that same energy regulating her sensory system. She can use her energy and attention to pay attention to what's being taught.”

Virtual academy had been planned for years

Vanderland’s daughter is one of about 300 students with IEPs for special education services that have chosen HVA for the fall.

In total, 1,713 students had signed up for HVA as of last Wednesday, making the K-12 school one of the district’s largest programs.

(Click here to view the breakdown of HVA students by home school.)

As vaccines become widely available and mask mandates lifted across the U.S., many school districts are ramping up efforts to return children to classrooms five days a week. New York City, the nation's largest school district, and the state of New Jersey, have eliminated all remote options for next year.

Once in-person learning resumed this spring, about 31,500 of the HCPS’ approximately 50,000 students remained as virtual learners and about 17,400 returned in person.

Henrico Virtual Academy had been in the works for years, said HVA Principal Garry Marshall (who formerly served as an Elko Middle School assistant principal) – the pandemic only accelerated its opening.

“One thing that really puts us a step ahead of the game is that so many of the structures are already in place for the program's success, because we're not starting from ground zero,” Marshall said. “Henrico has a strong tradition of instructional technology.”

The district already has the online programs Schoology and Microsoft Teams in place, for example.

The teachers coming on board to join HVA are HCPS teachers who have been the most successful at virtual learning throughout the past year.

Unlike the past year, teachers won’t have to juggle teaching the kids in front of them along with children at homes watching from their computers — the new academy will be 100% virtual. Even though there are no physical restraints, class sizes won’t be any larger. The teacher-to-student ratio will be the same as in brick-and-mortar classrooms, per the standards of quality issued by the state Department of Education.

“What’s more enticing as well is this is an actual school,” said Deia Champ, HCPS director of middle school education. “So they will still have that school community in regards to having a mascot and having school colors and having similar activities that you would have in an in-person setting.”

Students will be required to have their cameras on, which was not a requirement during the pandemic-mandated remote schooling this past year.

“[It] just leads to more of a sense of community, when you can see who you're interacting with,” Marshall said. “From the student perspective and from the peer perspective.”

The students who chose to enroll in HVA come from all five magisterial districts.

“Looking at a typical let’s say third grade classroom, you might have kids from who would attend Colonial Trail, or who might even attend Varina Elementary,” Marshall said. “So it's going to be just a huge variety of kids.”

More than 1,000 HVA students will come from Fairfield, Varina districts

More than half of the students enrolled at HVA are coming from the Varina and Fairfield districts.

School Board Chair Roscoe Cooper III, who represents the Fairfield District, pointed to the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately affected Black communities.

“Although cases are trending downward, we’re not there yet,” Cooper said. “In my district, families remain worried about the effects of the virus.”

There’s also a level of distrust of the government based on previous vaccine and medical mistreatment of the Black community throughout U.S. history.

Black people account for nearly 30% of the population in Henrico but only about 21% of all vaccinations as of June 7, according to RHHD data. By contrast, white people compose about 54% of the population but about 57.8% of those who have been vaccinated.

“Fairfield and Varina have the most African Americans living in Henrico,” Cooper said. “(The pandemic) has disproportionately affected these families and communities.”

In addition to that, many students simply perform better in remote learning, Cooper said. Teachers have the ability to be more flexible, and many families find that it works better with their needs. Cooper said his own two children found that virtual learning created an environment with fewer distractions.

The largest group of students are coming from the Varina District, with 548 students, followed by the Fairfield District with 466 students.

Henrico County School Board member Alicia Atkins, who represents the Varina District, said some of her constituents have chosen HVA due to safety concerns, vaccine hesitancy and greater success in remote learning.

“I am waiting for more trails and research to be done on those vaccines," one parent told Atkins. "My son suffers from a heart conditions and I am concerned about the potential side effects.  The HVA is the best option for us right now.”

There are 288 students coming from the Three Chopt District, 276 from the Brookland District and 133 from the Tuckahoe District. Two students are coming from another area or a special program.

Many students who signed up for HVA had withdrawn from HCPS in the past to go to other programs, according to Marshall.

“For us to be able to offer this option and bring them back into a community-based program is just phenomenal,” Marshall said. “We've had a lot of folks that are returning from that type of situation.”

HVA is a one-year commitment for students. At the end of the 2021-2022 school year, families can decide if they want to re-enroll in HVA or return to their traditional schools.

Similar to traditional HCPS “advisory classes,” which are designed around building community and usually take place in the morning, HVA's students will have a daily “virtual community class,” during which teachers will check in with the students and “help build that sense of community so the kids don't feel so isolated and they really feel a part of something,” Marshall said.

Students will follow a similar bell schedule as traditional schools, and there will be office hours for students seeking additional support.

The course offerings will be similar to traditional schools, and Marshall said the options are vast.

“We are offering, I think, one of the widest variety of courses of any virtual school in Virginia,” Marshall said.

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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.