Online charter school poised for enrollment surge

With many school districts still unsure what the fall semester will look like, applications for enrollment in Wisconsin Virtual Learning, the Northern Ozaukee School District’s online charter school, are flooding in, promising that enrollment could grow by as much as a third, officials said.

“The enrollment interest is extensive,” WVL Principal Mike Leach told the NOSD School Board on Monday, July 20, saying the school has been averaging 10 to 12 new applications each day for more than a month.

Leach made the announcement even as a district survey shows the vast majority of Northern Ozaukee parents are at least open to, if not in favor of, the district holding in-person school, despite concerns over the increasing number of coronavirus cases.

Leach said applications are coming from families all over Wisconsin, but mostly from families in southeastern Wisconsin — “within an hour of Milwaukee.”

He said few of the applications are from families who live in the Northern Ozaukee district, which announced earlier this month it will be offering five-day-a-week in-person school with the option of attending school remotely.

Many other districts have decided to offer a hybrid of in-person and remote attendance or have yet to finalize plans.

“Obviously, people are looking for options, looking for Plan B,” Leach said.

WVL is a public school that follows the NOSD calendar and offers the same curriculum as the district schools. Online teachers are often district staff members and students who attend district brick-and-mortar schools can take some classes online via WVL.

Families who choose to attend NOSD remotely will not be enrolled in WVL.

Last year’s WVL enrollment was 325 students. Leach estimated the number of students enrolled in the online school this coming year could be as many as 450.

NOSD enrollment in its three schools totals about 1,000.

Leach, who also doubles as the Ozaukee High School principal, said Gov. Tony Evers’ Safer At Home order, which shut down in-person school attendance this spring and forced parents to oversee their children’s remote learning from home, introduced many families to the concept of online learning and homeschooling.

“I think all of this has opened people’s eyes to its potential,” Leach said. “We’re excited at the potential, but we want to be responsible.”

Leach said merely applying does not guarantee attendance in the online school, saying there is an application process that he expects will weed out some applicants.

“We want to make sure of the commitment level,” he said. “We have no interest in accepting people who won’t be here a month from now.”

Meanwhile, NOSD Supt. Dave Karrels told School Board members that a district survey of parents and staff showed that 89.5% of parents were “middle of the road, comfortable or very comfortable” with returning to school in-person five days a week and following the school calendar.

“The number of parents that were in support of having students return in person to school was very high and demonstrates the level of support we have seen in moving forward with that plan,” Karrels said. 

Karrels said he expects to have a “playbook” in place that will answer most parents’  questions about how the new school year will operate.

“I don’t think it’s possible” to answer every question that parents and staff may have, he said. “But as questions come up, we hope to have a plan or solution in place as much as possible.

“Our ideal is to have everyone here in person” attending school, Karrels said. “But that won’t be realistic for many families.”