Putnam County’s online public school will host an informational event Thursday to showcase virtual learning opportunities for prospective families.
Assistant Principal Becky White said the evening features two distinct sessions designed to help students transition into the high school program and provide information to new families. White said the event targets middle and high school students who are considering moving from more traditional classroom settings into a virtual learning environment.
“We get students for different reasons,” White said. “Sometimes it may be social anxieties, just being in big classrooms. You know, our settings are a lot smaller. It may be that there’s family illnesses, you know, something that keeps them from wanting to be in a large group. It could be that they just need some, something that’s different from what they’re getting in brick-and-mortar. It could, you know… there’s just a variety of reasons why it works.”
White said the VITAL School offers the same curriculum used throughout the district for students grades five through 12. White said middle school students receive instruction through live Google Meet sessions, while high school students primarily work asynchronously to meet specific deadlines.
“We’re just excited to be able to be an opportunity for Putnam County students,” White said.”And that we would love for them to come and see what we have to offer. You know, it’s not always, education isn’t always one size fits all.”
White said the transition from eighth to ninth grade is a primary focus of the event because the high school model requires more self-driven responsibility than the middle school program.
“When they’re making that transition in our building from, or in our school from eighth grade to ninth grade, they’re needing to, to sort of see the difference in how the classes are going to lay out, the options that they have, but just the way that the day runs because they are used to having that daily interaction with their teachers, whereas when they get to the high school, it’s more self-driven. They’re, there’s a lot more responsibility with it because they do have to, to meet the deadlines within their own timeframe,” White said.
White said students enrolled in the virtual school maintain the ability to participate in sports at their zoned schools, such as Cookeville High School or Upperman. White said the school also provides internal extracurricular activities including a yearbook team, Beta Club, and a STEM club that has competed at the national level.
“There’s a lot of the same opportunities that students have. It just looks different because we are virtual,” White said.
