After one year of being a partner with Rural Virtual Academy, the Shawano School Board voted unanimously Jan. 20 to move to the next level with the online school.
Rural Virtual Academy is a charter school based in the Medford School District. It offers K-12 instruction in core academics as well as electives and remediation and acceleration curriculums.
Previously, students wanting to receive virtual instruction had to transfer out of Shawano through the open enrollment process. After the shift to virtual instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, families preferring to continue virtual instruction at home had no option other than to transfer out of the district. With the partnership in place, students do not have to transfer and can still participate in district activities or classes.
Currently, all other school districts in Shawano County are affiliate members, while Shawano spent the past year as an invested member. Becoming an affiliate member is expected to yield substantial savings to the district.
Shawano currently has 39 regular education students enrolled in the academy at a tuition rate of $7,462 per student. There is also one special education student enrolled for $12,314 in tuition and one 4-year-old kindergarten student enrolled for $4,477.
If Shawano had remained an affiliate member, the cost to the district would have been $322,809, which was almost $46,000 below the $368,709 it would have paid if it was not partnered with the academy and losing those students to open enrollment. As an invested partner, the district would only pay $199,500 next year for those same students, with tuition discounted at $1,500 per student.
According to information the academy sent to the district, having a multiyear invested partnership benefits the district through direct governance and revenue sharing.
“We’d be seeing a return in savings,” said Superintendent Kurt Krizan.
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
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