Attending Florida Virtual School

Florida Virtual School is well established and is very well known throughout Florida, the United States and the rest of the world. It was founded in 1997 to provide virtual education solutions for primary and secondary school students. It was the first Internet-based public high school in the country, and has an extremely good reputation. Students living in Florida have the option of taking courses for free, while those outside the state can take still take the courses but will have to pay tuition fees.

The Advantages of Attending Florida Virtual School

The advantage of attending Florida Virtual School is that you will receive expert tuition from qualified and certified instructors. You can interact with your teacher through e-mail, telephone, instant messenger, or voice mail, and you’ll find your teachers are available Monday to Friday from around 8 AM to 8 PM, as well as during the weekend. Even if you are happy working without any assistance, it’s likely that your teacher will want to speak to you and your parents at least once a month. While the courses last between 16 and 18 weeks for a half credit, it is possible to accelerate your learning as you can choose to do extra assignments every week.

You can choose from more than 90 courses, and these courses are accepted for credit and are transferable. The downside of attending this school is that it is unable to grant any degrees or diplomas, even though its courses are fully accredited and include all the core subjects, languages, honors classes and advanced placement courses. Nearly 100,000 students a year choose to receive their schooling this way. All the information on courses is available online and there are no textbooks with the courses. Florida Virtual School’s website, www.flvs.net is well worth a look as it has lots of information on all the available courses, and also about school itself.

Who Takes Courses with Florida Virtual School?

All sorts of students take courses with this Virtual School, and some are in public or private schools while others are home schooled. They use the courses to get around scheduling conflicts, to meet homeschooling course requirements, and to take the AP courses which are college-level courses enabling them to get ahead on their college credit. Talented students can choose to try the honors courses, and can complete the honors assignments in their chosen course. This is a great way of trying out your skills, and if you find it too much you can simply resume your normal course without incurring any penalties.

Additional Activities and Resources Offered by Florida Virtual School

As the Florida Virtual School is all online it might be easy to feel a little isolated from others of your own age, especially if you are homeschooled. The Virtual School gets around this by offering lots of student activities, and it has a huge range of online events and student clubs, and students are recommended to take full advantage of these to help them achieve a more rounded education. In a way, achieving your education online means you will be part of a global community, and will be able to participate in online discussions with students from across the world, and this can be a very enriching experience.

If you are having trouble with your research for your studies, you can even chat online with a local librarian, and the Virtual library offers a huge collection of resources. The school issues a student newspaper and newspaper club, and of course student participation is encouraged. The school does everything it can to ensure you receive a well rounded and enriching education.

Where Do I Go after Attending the Florida Virtual School?

After you have completed your education your official transcript will be sent electronically to the school of record. Once you have sufficient credit to finish high school, you can then think about further education, and an excellent source of free information is stateuniversity.com. This website will give you lots of useful information about courses available in your area, or courses which are available online. If you are thinking of attending Florida Virtual School, then another good source of information on education is the US Department of Education’s website www.ed.gov, as this has lots of information on all education including post secondary education, student loans and Pell Grants, and college accreditation.