IVS Now! Annual Report May 2016 Prepared by the Peoria County Regional Office of Education d/b/a Illinois Virtual School Peoria County Regional Office of Education d/b/a Illinois Virtual School Peoria County Regional Office of Education #48 Elizabeth A. Crider Derry, Regional Superintendent Cindy Dollman, Assistant Regional Superintendent Illinois Virtual School Staff Cindy Hamblin, Director Danielle Brush Lewis, Coordinator of Professional Development Services Edward Cook, Customer Service Lead Maria Gottschalk, Learning Management System Specialist Jennifer Kolar-Burden, Coordinator of Curriculum Liz Lappin, Instructional Media Developer Lara Zink Pritchard, Enrollment and Data Specialist Illinois Virtual School has institutional membership in the following organizations. • International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) • Virtual School Leadership Alliance • Quality Matters • Consortium of School Networks (CoSN) Background and Purpose Illinois Virtual School (IVS) is the Illinois State Board of Education’s (ISBE) statewide virtual school. ISBE established IVS as a supplemental online program. The IVS program is designed to allow students who are enrolled in a public or private school to supplement their education by taking courses that are educationally appropriate. In addition, IVS works with homeschool students. Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) GOAL 1: “Every child in each public school system in the state of Illinois deserves to attend a system wherein . Ninety percent or more students graduate from high school ready for college and career.” REALITY: Students may require alternative solutions to assure their learning success and preparation for college and/or career. Solution: A school partnership with IVS provides: • an opportunity for students to take a fully online curriculum giving schools, students, and families greater options; • an opportunity for students to take courses not offered by their face-to-face school, such as Advanced Placement, world languages, and other enrichment opportunities; • flexibility in scheduling; • credit recovery options for students to graduate on time; and • individualized instruction that occurs anytime, anywhere, and any pace through teacher managed courses. The IVS program is administered through the Peoria County Regional Office of Education, a member of the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools (IARSS). For the past 15 years, ISBE’s virtual program (IVHS, now IVS) has provided leadership to accelerate the adoption and use of online learning within Illinois. Working in partnership with public and private schools as well as homeschooled students, IVS offers classes to students, and professional development programs for educators, through online web- based services. Online learning increases educational access to improve educational outcomes. Since IVS partners —not competes—with schools, the local school retains their students and is able to offer expanded learning opportunities. This report has been prepared to identify the online learning opportunities made available to students and educators in Illinois through IVS. Specifically, this report highlights: • Online courses available through IVS • Course enrollment and completion trend data • School partnerships established through the state • Professional development opportunities for educators - Cindy Hamblin, Director Illinois Virtual School 1 Online Courses Available through IVS Full-Service Online Courses • IVS offers 138 semester, full-service courses in the curricular areas of Business and Economics, Information Technology, Fine Arts, Health, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, and World Languages. See Exhibit One page 11 for the course catalog. • All twenty-six (26) Advanced Placement semester courses are approved through the College Board. • Five (5) world languages are offered (Spanish, French, German, Latin, and Chinese). • Courses are aligned to appropriate state and national standards. • Illinois certified, highly qualified teachers facilitate each IVS course. • IVS high school courses have been coded based on the State Course Codes and rigor levels as part of the Illinois State Course System (ISCS). • IVS is recognized by the NCAA and College Board for AP courses. The IVS Ceeb Code is 140188. • IVS full-service courses are $225 (summer) or $250 (fall) per course. IVS invoices the school directly for the student’s enrollment in IVS courses. Local school policy determines if the school or parent pays for the course and at what rate. The graph below represents FY 15 course enrollments by Department. The top three courses in respect to enrollment are: • Consumer Economics • American History • Health Education In addition, the Spanish program at IVS had 603 enrollments in Spanish I-IV for the fall and spring semesters. The large enrollment is due to a shortage of Spanish instructors in Illinois. 2 Credit Recovery Online Courses • IVS offers 26 semester, credit recovery courses in the curricular areas of Electives, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies. See Exhibit One page 11 for the course catalog. • A prescriptive pretest is taken by the student to identify areas of deficiency, which then generates a lesson-level learning plan of competencies for the student to complete. Learning plans also include key activities required for student promotion regardless of pretest performance. • Illinois certified teachers manage these courses. The teacher is responsible for grading identified key assessments, monitoring progress, and completing the student when mastery is reach. • IVS credit recovery courses are are $85 (summer) or $90 (fall) per semester course, with 10 weeks of access to complete. Commitment to Quality IVS is dedicated to offering quality courses, taught by quality instructors and supported by a quality technical assistance team. IVS utilizes the Quality Matters rubric for reviewing and improving IVS courses. The Quality Matters rubric is based on research-supported and published best practices in online and blended course development. Quality Matters is a leader in quality assurance for online education. IVS maintains a robust training and support program for its online instructors. Teachers new to IVS complete a multi-layer training program before receiving a course assignment. The training includes an introduction to the online environment; technical skill development in managing an online course; and practice performing the day-to-day responsibilities of an online instructor. New teachers are assigned to an IVS mentor for the initial 4 – 7 months of teaching. IVS maintains an experienced staff. Data collected in 2015 for a research project showed the median years of teaching online among IVS instructors was 8 years. Participation in an IVS Professional Learning Community and ongoing professional development are required of all instructors. The IVS team is dedicated to supporting the school personnel, students, and parent/guardians using IVS programs. IVS utilizes a 24/7 help desk system to provide assistance and access to extensive resources. Our customer satisfaction rating is collected each month with an average of 97% satisfaction rate. 3 Course Enrollment and Completion Data Below are the course enrollments for FY10 – FY 15 as well as FY16 enrollment to date. FY 2010: 2530 enrollments FY 2011: 2993 enrollments FY 2012: 3167 enrollments FY 2013: 3185 enrollments FY 2014: 3837 enrollments FY 2015: 5157 enrollments FY 16 Enrollments-to-Date (August 2015 through April 2016) Full-service courses have fourteen flexible enrollment terms throughout the school year. Each term includes 17 weeks of instruction. Credit recovery courses are setup for rolling enrollment. Schools can register a student to begin a credit recovery course any day of the year. • August 2015 1132 enrollments • September 2015 298 enrollments • October 2015 138 enrollments • November 2015 86 enrollments • December 2015 70 enrollments • January 2016 123 enrollments • February 2016 212 enrollments • March 2016 196 enrollments • April 2016 133 enrollments NOTE: Total enrollments to date for FY 16 are 3488. This represents a 52.6% increase for the same time period last year. Completion Rate Data for Full Service Courses Completion Rate is determined by the number of students earning 60% or higher divided by the number of students in the course. Beginning in FY 12, students who drop after the two-week grace period or fail to earn 10% (non-starters) are not included in the calculation of the Completion Rate. • 2010 – 2011 92% completion rate • 2011 – 2012 90% completion rate • 2012 - 2013 90% completion rate • 2013 - 2014 92% completion rate • 2014 – 2015 89% completion rate 4 Student Voices Students are directed to complete an IVS Course Survey at the 50% point of their course. The data shared below is from student data collected over the past three years. The data includes 3100+ student responses. The IVS team utilizes student feedback to enhance our services as well as address any concerns or celebrate successes. The IVS Student Data during this time period indicates that 63.7% of our students are female and 36.3% are male. For 68% of the students, the IVS course they are enrolled in is their first online course. The table below reflects the breakdown of our students by their current grade in school. Students’ reasons for taking an IVS online course reported in the survey include: • School requirement or school advised student to take the course 41.0% • Student has an