Overton County Schools will be starting a new virtual program to try and accommodate home-school students throughout the county.
Supervisor Brent Thrasher said Overton Schools has had a virtual program in the past. But the state began regulating the programs more closely after COVID. The school system decided at that point to step away.
“We have a growing home-school population in our district,” Thrasher said. “We have about 600 students approximately and so you know, of course, as I mentioned we have served that population in the past with Tech Prep but we are looking at another way to approach that, that is compliant.”
Thrasher said the program would offer a free option for families who want to home-school their child. Thrasher said a student in the program would be enrolled in the school that is closest to their address.
“That would give them opportunities to be under that school for whether it’s for participating in their activities in school, sports events in the school, and also that is where they go and do their testing because they would be would still be kind of doing what we are doing with state testing and benchmark test that are required to do in a brick and mortar school,” Thrasher said.
Thrasher said the minimal amount of license purchases needed to start the program is eight. Thrasher said Johnson City Schools use the same program and they are paying an estimated $2,900 per license. Thrasher said the state gives $4,000 per student in the program to the school system. When asked whether the program would gain a lot of interest, Thrasher said he thinks there would be a good turnout.
“If we started in the fall and we only had the eight minimum and you know we have 15 the winner you know, for the second semester we could add more licenses in if we had more people wanting to join the program,” Thrasher said.
The board questioned if offering the virtual program would take students away from brick-and-mortar schools. Director of Schools Donnie Holman said that is not the goal, but rather offer another option.
