Oregon Public Broadcasting

Students of online schools in Oregon are in limbo. The future of virtual schools -- as they are known -- is one of the most contentious issues in the Oregon Legislature. The question is how should the state oversee school districts that span hundred of miles and exist largely in cyberspace.

The issue proved too thorny for lawmakers last year, so they turned it over to a task force.

This month, that group is asking the Legislature to have the state Board of Education hash out the details.  As Chris Lehman found, that means students don't know if they'll be able to continue with their online studies.

Lacey McGraw works through her lessons at home in Canby, Oregon.

12-year-old Lacey McGraw likes her teacher.

Lacey McGraw: "She's really nice. She helps me with my schoolwork when I need help."

But Lacey's only met her teacher in person once. Most of the time Lacey communicates with her teacher by email and chat room.

Lacey lives in Canby, Oregon. Her teacher, Mrs. Norland, is about 12 miles away in Lake Oswego.

Lacey is a sixth grader in Oregon Virtual Academy, an online public school. Each morning she opens up a laptop computer and works her way through lessons on math, literature, history, and earth sciences.

Computer voice: "Atmosphere."

Lacey McGraw: "And then it says the definition."

After some review, it's time for a quiz.

Lacey McGraw: "You check it, and if I get it right, it tells why I got it right. And when I get it wrong, it shows me why I get it wrong."

Lacey says she enjoys being able to work at her own pace. Sometimes that means going faster than she would in a traditional classroom. Often, though, it means she can slow down and take the extra time she needs to understand something.

Lacey's mother, Cindy McGraw, says her daughter has a reading disability and has trouble with short-term memory retention.

Cindy McGraw: "She was coming home with these simple spelling lists that we were spending an hour on, trying to get her to somehow retain that information in her brain. And then the next day it'd be like we hadn't even studied it."

Lacey says back when she attended a regular school, she fell behind in part because she wasn't able to communicate with her teachers.

Lacey McGraw: "I felt like nobody could really help me. I couldn't quite get what I was trying to say into words. I could say them, but nobody really could understand me."

Cindy says she and her husband tried public and private schools, tutors, holding Lacey back a year. Nothing worked.

The stress even made Lacey physical ill. Cindy says that all changed when she enrolled Lacey in the online school a year-and-a-half ago. Lacey soon caught up to her grade level.

Cindy McGraw: "By the end of the year last year, she was leveled in reading, leveled in math, through the testing that she took throughout the year."

But now Cindy and other parents of online school students worry that the state will limit their options.

A bill last year set a cap on the number of students at the state's two largest virtual schools while policy-makers figure out how online education should be governed.

The measure grew out of concerns that cyber-classrooms lacked the same kind of oversight that bricks-and-mortar schools have.

Chuck Bennett of the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators says the boards that oversee the online schools have a conflict of interest since increasing their enrollment numbers means an influx of public education dollars.

Chuck Bennett: "You may not be as critical of what you're looking at. In many cases, we've found that people really don't know what the costs are, what the curriculum looks like. There's just some things that need to be clarified and standardized."

Those are concerns shared by the state's powerful teachers union, the Oregon Education Association. So lawmakers created a task force to work on some of those issues. But while the task force recommended some changes, the bill it forwarded to this year's legislature would leave many of those decisions in the hands of the Oregon Board of Education.

It, in turn, would have to submit proposed changes back to lawmakers. 

House Education Committee Chair Sara Gelser says she's confident the Board of Education is up to the task. She says the issue goes well beyond the students currently enrolled in online public schools.

Sara Gelser: "How do we use this tool to improve education for every student in this state, whether it's a school in a rural district that wants to offer Mandarin to their students, or a district in Lane County that wants to have a hybrid model where they allow their students to take some classes online."

A study by the U.S. Department of Education last year concluded that that type of hybrid model, blending elements of face-to-face and online teaching may be most effective.

Meanwhile, virtual school advocates rallied this month on the steps of the Oregon capitol.

Parent Cindy McGraw says she supports appropriate oversight of online schools. But she's frustrated that she won't get answers anytime soon as to whether her daughter Lacey and other students like her can continue their education online long-term.

Cindy McGraw: "Why am I still at this point, 18 months after the inception of us being in this program, still sitting here with the same fears, the same reservations, the same unknowns. Figure out what you need to figure out. I don't care. But don't mess with the educational process that she's involved in."

If lawmakers vote this month to direct the Board of Education to develop rules for online schools, it could set up another battle in the Legislature next year.

Last year's bill went through more than four dozen amendments and was ultimately approved on the final day of the session.

On the Web:

Oregon House Bill 3660