What It Takes to Run One of America’s Largest Virtual Schools – With Kris Stewart

Well, Kris Stewart, uh, I’ve known you a long time. First of all, welcome to the show.

Kris Stewart:: Thank you for inviting me.

Kevin P. Chavous: Uh, you’re a legendary leader in Ohio. Um, you run the largest school, if not one of the largest, if not the largest school in the state, high school, in the state. Uh, it’s a virtual school, but I really wanna start off by asking how you got involved in education, because I do think that true educators have a calling that sort of reaches out to them before they even know it.

Kris Stewart:: Yeah, it, it, it does and, and honestly, I think it sometimes sneaks up on us. Right. And, and that’s the way it was with me. I actually had a completely different career path chosen, uh, and I went to a college, um, class and had to do some volunteering, and it was helping students learn how to read. And I found that I really could do, I could do it.

I liked it. And students were progressing and I started thinking, you know, this is, this is a purpose I can get behind. Right? And so that’s really how I ended up just taking a class by happenstance. It was just one of those required classes you had to take. But it, it, it let me see something. That I wasn’t expecting.

Kevin P. Chavous: Yeah. And uh, from there, you not only became proficient in the classroom, but you got in administration. Talk about that transition because some, some teachers are able to make that transition. Some people were able to make that transition from. You know, business life to administration, but not everyone.

But you’ve done it well. What, what were some of the lessons learned that allowed you to seamlessly make that transition and ultimately be successful at it?

Kris Stewart: I think part of it is, you know, oftentimes educators think the next step is going into administration, and that’s not why we should go into administration.

We should only go into administration if we see that there’s something that we can contribute. And we see that there’s this void or, um, something that’s not just quite right. Um, something that we can lend ourselves to. Right? And that’s what happened. It actually was my second year of teaching. Um, I had a principal that said, you know, you really need to think about leadership, Chris.

Um, and he started putting me in roles where I took that leadership role. And then before I knew it. There I was Kevin. I was an administrator whether I thought I was gonna ever be or not. ’cause I loved the classroom. Oh my goodness. I loved the classroom and I never thought I’d leave. But I love administration now too.

So,

Kevin P. Chavous: yeah. So talk a little bit about, uh, the Ohio Virtual Academy and what you’re doing There is, I said, it’s a super large school. How many students in your school?

Kris Stewart:: They serve about 16. 16 to 17,000. 16

Kevin P. Chavous: to 17,000. Um, and talk about the school and its mission because you’re doing a lot of unique work and because of the size of the school, I mean, you can’t do it all.

You have to have a staff. That’s tight. So talk a little bit about how you’re able to keep that screw running the way it is.

Kris Stewart:: And, uh, thank you. And, and this is my favorite subject to talk about. So, um, this’ll be easy. I actually do, um, spend a lot of time on leadership growth and picking out the right people to be there, right?

Because you all have to have a shared mission. It doesn’t have to be the exact same mission, but it needs to be shared. And at OHBA Ohio Virtual Academy, our shared mission is providing students hope for the future. We feel that if there’s nothing else we can do, if we can make those kids know that whatever’s happening in their life right now doesn’t have to define who they are, it can if it’s a positive thing, but if it’s a lot going on in their lives right now, we need to be able to say, that doesn’t have to define who you are.

We wanna help you get to where you really want to be in life. Right. We wanna get you to your goal and when you, as you said, you can’t do it yourself, you know, that might have been, I might have been the person who planted that one little seed, but I have an amazing team. I have, um, 750 staff. Um, I have, uh, close to 24 administrators.

I have a senior team of three people, and we are all marching in the same direction. And that’s the only way this can be successful. And, um, I am proud every day of the things that we do for students every day.

Kevin P. Chavous: Let me jump in for a quick moment. For a lot of students, the traditional model just isn’t the right fit.

That’s why more than 3 million families have chosen K12 power schools, offering flexible tuition free learning options. With certified teachers and a personalized approach that meets learners where they are. If that sounds worth exploring, you can head to k12.com/podcast. Alright, back to the conversation.

So I have visited your school, I’ve spoken at your graduation. And I want to dig a little deeper on that because I share, uh, some of your approaches with educators that I visit in schools around the country. And one of the things I was really impressed with, uh, Chris, you have 16, 17,000 students as you know, today’s children.

The average student now is not operating at grade level and many students have mental health issues. I’m gonna talk a little bit about that and other sorts, just challenges in their home life. One thing I was really impressed with every day is that you and your team, you know, have to sit in a circle and you talk through some of the major or prominent issues that need to be addressed regarding individual children.

Talk about that process and how things get bubbled up like that, because children who have challenges oftentimes can fall through the cracks when. Particularly in a large school, but I’ve seen how you all take the time each day to figure out how to address those acute issues. Talk about that.

Kris Stewart:: Yeah, I, I think students.

Can hide themselves. And unfortunately, I think in many schools, educators allow them to be hidden. And so we feel we need to bring them out in the forefront. And when I say them, I don’t mean a particular student, but in all the situations we hear, um, we have some amazing wraparound services that we, provide to our students.

Some of them, you know, we have counselors, we have advisors, we have. Teachers, our teachers work in co-teaching teams and pods and intervention specialists and, and what we do is we make sure that we have teacher-based teams that meet and talk about not just the latest, um, academic scores. Which is important.

We’re school, it’s important. But they also talk about, um, what it is to be unhoused, what it is to be anxious, what it is to be depressed, what it is to when you’re grieving, what it is for those students who, um, are oftentimes the caregiver of a family member, those types of things. And then we make sure we come up with a plan on how we can support that.

And, um, we’ve been very successful at it, and it’s something that I, I feel as though it’s a strength at OHBA because every single team member. Participates in doing that from, from the office workers, to the teachers, to the administrators. Everyone knows there’s a mission and that is to help those students and support them.

Kevin P. Chavous: And I’ve noticed that, um, and. I raised a flag about the mental health challenges we’ve seen over the last 10 years or so. More attention paid to those kinds of challenges. Some of them have been there for years, but now I think society’s paying more attention. Talk specifically about, uh, how you, and you mentioned your team of counselors, how you’re able to flag these challenges and make sure you’re getting the right care and attention to address them for each student.

Kris Stewart:: Right. Um, our counselors are, um, RAMP certified. We are, I’m proud to say, the only two virtual schools in the entire nation that are RAMP certified. And that means recognize asca, um, model, um, program and the. ASCA means American School Counselor Association. So we’ve actually been recognized as this from the, the, the American School Counseling Program.

And we’ve made sure that it’s not just the counselors that find them, right, they have to be referred to the counselors. So it’s the teachers’ advisors. Parents, um, staff, other staff that notice something that’s going on. And then we have our counselors who have a tremendous amount of small groups. We have, um, you know, worry warriors for the little ones.

Uh, we have anxiety classrooms. We have. Young moms, can you imagine the stress on the young moms and young fathers that come to our schools knowing they have to work and support students and children themselves? Um, and then, you know, we, we wanna make sure that those students who’ve fallen back or, you know, have back slid a bit.

It’s something that they’ve have a hurdle with. What is that hurdle that we can help them pass over? And oftentimes it’s. Mental health related. Um, as you said, Kevin, I think this mental health, um, crisis has been with us for a very, very long time. But oftentimes, um, we as adults have a tendency to push it aside because of our own issues, or we prefer to say, oh, just get over it.

Or, uh, you know, just toughen up or whatever, right? This generation, um, especially since COVID, but even before that, um, this generation isn’t letting us say that. They’re saying, I want help. Oh, can you please help me? And it is our duty to do that.

Kevin P. Chavous: Yeah. And it’s a beautiful thing that, now the country is waking up to, you know, so much of what you’ve been talking about, Chris.

Um. The support, the attention to each child really speaks to a school community. And one thing that we haven’t spoken about, which now I want to after sort of demonstrating the type of community that you’ve, is the virtual component. So many people assume you cannot build this type of focus.

School community in a virtual environment. Talk about how that’s possible. ’cause you’ve made it possible.

Kris Stewart:: Yeah. It’s work, right? It’s work. And I think it’s something you can’t lose sight of. And, and I would tell those folks that say, oh, it can’t happen, then you need to come visit a school where it is happening.

I’m sure we’re not the only one, but I’m certainly proud of the work that we’re doing and, and part of that is number one, hiring wealth. Hiring people who believe that it can be done and then continuing to train them, continuing to, um, discuss, uh, strategies, continuing to, um, remind them of their mission, right?

Those are the things that need to continue to happen so that everybody’s on board. If I have 750 people, I better have 750 people understanding. That we are here for those students. And I have had teachers who’ve been new to the program, um, who came in thinking, oh, I’m gonna take this. It’ll be an easy job.

You know, I,  work from home. And they come and they say, I think I know my students better now. Than I ever did in the classroom because of the things that we’ve set up so that they can have time with those students and they can feel relaxed with those students. Um, and, and I think a big part of that also is, is the co-teaching and the, and, and being able to have one teacher do the teaching while the other’s watching, observing it and paying attention to what’s going on.

Um, and then, and then having counselors in there, or advisors in there as well. So everybody’s paying attention. Right. You can’t build something if you’re not paying attention. To the blueprint, and I think that’s what they’re doing.

Kevin P. Chavous: What about this issue of engagement, again, with the school year size, it’s so easy for kids to become unengaged, if you will.

Uh, what do you do to make sure, what do you and your teachers and staff do to make sure that students remain engaged? And there’s such a uniqueness now to every student. How are you able to keep that in place with so many kids?

Kris Stewart:: Yeah, and it’s again, a lot of hard work. I think part of it is Kevin, is, is making sure that, um, uh, people take the time to do that engagement and, and what if we see a student falling on the wayside?

You know, somebody who was, you know, doing well, but maybe starting to fall. It is every single one of those people that are wrapped around them, and there’s usually three to four teachers, um, minimum. And then all the other positions I’ve r. Um, spoken about, it’s their responsibility to find out what’s causing that child not to be engaged anymore.

Are they bored? Are you bored? No. I often tell the teachers to look inward first. Are we bored of them? Do they not wanna be engaged with us? That’s our first step, but then we also need to look and say, um, did something change in their home life? That we need to address. Did something change, um, that’s causing them?

Are they stuck in a subject and we need to get them some extra help? What’s going on that gets them engaged? It’s our responsibility, Kevin. It’s not the student’s responsibility to be engaged. I know that’s kind of not what people wanna hear, but it’s our, the adult’s responsibility to find out why they’re not engaged, and then to do what we can to overcome that barrier.

Kevin P. Chavous: You know, Chris, I have a couple more areas I want to discuss with you because I do think through those other school leaders around the country, uh, be they a leader in a virtual program or a traditional brick and mortar program. One thing I know that great teachers and school leaders do is, uh. Steal from others.

They see a good idea, a good approach. And I think that some of the things you put in place, because it’s such a large school and there’s such a diverse student population, other people could benefit from. And, and, and one thing, and along those lines I wanted to talk about was the sort of this advent of technology and ai.

How are you able to integrate what’s new? And improved and coming down the pike in terms of technology and resources for students. And, and, and it’s particularly important since it is a virtual school and so many kids connect with sort of the virtual experience. Talk about how you’re able to keep not just yourself, but your staff and your team, you know, forward looking.

Uh, and that’s the area.

Kris Stewart: Yeah. And first, Kevin, I have to say that I used to always say, if you’ve stolen it from me, you’ve stolen it twice. So it’s, it’s not like I come up with great ideas myself. Um, but I, I think the thing is, is that, um, it’s a constant. Mission and a constant need to figure out our learners, right?

These learners, this generation, we can call ’em whatever we want. We can call ’em Generation Z, genera alpha. We’ve now gone into beta. It doesn’t matter. They are not us. They are not you and me. They do not learn the way you and I learn. They don’t even think the way you, and I think they have this rap rapid response.

They have this need to get in there and find out if the answer’s real. They have this need to multitask. They have this read that they need to use digital learning, right? So I think we do a disservice to our students if we don’t bring in the new. Because it’s not, we’re, we shouldn’t be teaching for us, we should be teaching for them.

So, you know, I’m having this same conversation. I think, you know, out of my 750, I cannot say that all 750 of my staff members are gung-ho about bringing in AI right now. Right. There’s a lot of fear around that. There’s fear that they’re cheating and they’re, they’re not, you know, they’re not learning. And I keep saying maybe it’s time we redefine cheating.

Because if I can pick up my phone and look up anything I want, then I’m never gonna consider that cheating. So if a student thinks they can just do something on a computer or an AI, they’re not gonna consider that cheating. So maybe we have to redefine, I think that, you know, what we do is we have a discussion about it because I think you don’t have to have everybody on board, but you have to have some real strong people on board.

Um, and we’ve began doing that. You know, when we, when we do our pd, we have a lot of people bring in things that they have found. You know, I, I won’t name, um, actual products, but a lot of AI tools that they have found have really helped. I think the other thing we have to do is help teachers see the tools that can help them and, and if they see that they can be supported by ai, why would we not think our teachers or our students can be supported by ai?

The same thing with, um, a lot of the, you know, gaming or the newer types of ways of learning. We have to understand it may not be how we wanna learn or can learn, but we’re not doing this for us, we’re doing it for the students. And so that’s the discussion we start with. Is this, will this benefit our students if we bring it into the school?

Kevin P. Chavous: You know, along those lines. What’s interesting, Chris, is that studies have now shown that, uh, Minecraft is one of the best teaching tools for young kids to learn and, um, get engaged in their learning journey. And I will humbly say that, that, you know, for those who feel that AI is cheating, you raised a good point.

But the other point is this, um. This is where critical thinking comes in. Once you get the information, what do you make of it? What do you do with it? What does it mean? And I think that more and more of America’s classrooms are gonna be engaged in those kinds of discussions, which really helps shape how we solve problems going forward.

And, and, and I don’t know, ’cause you know it better than me, but I, I think that’s a big part of it as well. Mm-hmm.

Kris Stewart: I agree a hundred percent because I think that. Students, we have to teach students to be critical thinkers. And if I pull out something from AI and I read it and it just doesn’t sound right, ’cause it’s not always right.

Right. If it doesn’t sound right, I better do my research. On other things and find out what’s right or wrong about that. And it’s critical thinking. And I think that’s where AI literacy comes in. I think we have to teach students how to, um, uh, think about what they’re pulling and what they’re doing on AI.

I think AI has to be a tool. It cannot be anything else but a tool. And we have to present it that way.

Kevin P. Chavous: So I also wanna ask you about, um. Career Pathway CT because, uh, as you know, uh, more and more young people today, uh, are aided in their learning journey, uh, by being introduced to Career pathways. Many.

Students now are graduating with AA or you know, certificates or two years of college credits, uh, or certifications where they can immediately go into a job. They can further their education or they can get well paying jobs because of certifications. Uh, as I understand it, uh, your school is a purple star certified CTE Pathway School, isn’t that right?

Kris Stewart:: Well, our purple. Purple Star is for military families. But yeah, we are a CTE, um, school. And honestly, um, I was just having, uh, discussions today around our data with our CTE and we’re really starting to see our program grow because I, I think that kids are deciding, um, and I know this is really angst for a lot of people, but PE kids are deciding, will I get.

Out of college enough for what I’m going to pay for it. Now I need people to understand because I believe this firmly, CTE does not mean no college, right? We actually look today at our graduates that just graduated out of our program, and we had close to a hundred kids that graduated this year that were also CTE, and some of them, because they were in marketing.

Or they were in, um, you know, uh, some sort of, uh, ti uh, or it, uh, computerized, uh, program. They’re going on to college. They wanna, they wanna keep building on those skills and become better at it. But then we also had a story today that was pretty exciting, where, um, one of our graduates called because we had some internships with YMCA for our early childhood development.

And, um, she called because she passed all of her tests. And was able to actually get a job at the YMCA where she did her internship. So she already has her dream job. She wanted to be an early childhood teacher, and now she’s that, and she’s just graduated a month ago. So, you know, I think that you have to weigh what do you want, where do you want to go?

And maybe you start with that job and then say, you know what? I think if I pick up this skill and that skill and this skill and I need to go to college to do that, I can do that too. Right. I think that we don’t have to have an either or, but I do think we have another responsibility to make sure our students have everything they can to make them successful.

We’re finding a lot of our certifications. We had over, um, almost 900 certifications last year in different, excuse me, different things, you know, from Adobe to Microsoft Suites, those kinds of things that kids were picking up to help them graduate. But those are gonna help ’em in life too. Yeah, they

Kevin P. Chavous: will.

Yeah. That’s a beautiful thing. So, one last question, Chris. This is what I really wanna know. You being the esteemed educator that you are, I’m gonna put you on the spot a little bit. Um, you know, most of us, even today’s kids to some extent, uh, sort of grew up in a system that. Kind of promoted a one size fits all.

We’re deviating from a little bit, but if you could sort of redesign this, you know, uh, an educational journey for young people starting at preschool moving forward. I. Uh, what would it look like?

Kris Stewart: What an exciting question, Kevin. Um, you are right. This is fun. So I think that what I have really come, this is my 42nd year in education, uh, 25 at OH or 24 at OHVA.

But, um, I think if I were gonna start, I would really focus on. Interests and what, what kids, um, how kids learn, right? I think we ignore that. I still think we ignore that far too much. We think we have a system and it works, right? Once in a while we throw something cool in like an iPod or an iPad or a computer or, and we think we’ve done something new and nifty, and it’s not because we’re doing the same thing we’re doing.

We’re just putting it on a computer now, right? So what we need to do is let those students figure out how they learn. So I would love to start that in, in the pre-K all the way through high school. Let students if, if they can work, there are kids who could just pick it up and. Right. We know there are kids who could just have an AI tutor and say, I don’t get this, and have the AI tutor help them.

Or they might be able to say, I don’t think I understand this, but I learned better from another student. So I think I’m gonna join a study group. Um, or I don’t get this, but the kids aren’t helping me. So I, I’ve gotta go over here to this teacher. It doesn’t have to be the teacher I see every day. It can be a tutor.

I just need some help. They need to be able to figure that out, first of all. Um, and then I think, in my opinion. They need to get that content. We all know you have to read, you have to have math, you have to have some science skills, you have to have some, some social studies skills. We get that right. We understand that, but that doesn’t have to be six hours of discussion every day, right?

That can be something. I get it as I get it right, but then I’m gonna take my passion. I mean, don’t you learn best when you’re passionate about it? We just found that out. We were just talking about that we have the highest passing score we’ve ever had, and part of it is, that students are getting into what they really like these pathways, right?

I’m not learning this from something else. I’m learning it from something I’m passionate about. Let’s let students do that. Let’s let students at the end be able to take all those soft skills, the learning how to use technology, learning how to use critical thinking, learning how to use problem solving, learning how to get along with other people and coordinate learning how to get over our fears and our anxieties about being failures.

Yes, we may fail. But then we just figure out how to fix it again and we go on with it. Right. That’s what I would love to see. I would love to see a school that allowed students to have more, I don’t wanna say flexibility or I more, um, ownership of how they learn, because I think that that this generation.

Because that’s what they need. They need to own their own type of learning.

Kevin P. Chavous: Boy Chris, if they only would listen to us, right? Yeah. I know you’re the ones with the gray hair. Chris Stewart, look, I appreciate what you do and I really am grateful you joined us. Thank you for appearing on what I want to know.

Kris Stewart: Thank you. I appreciate the invitation and being able to share with you. Kevin,

Kevin P. Chavous: Thanks for listening. What I want to know, be sure to follow and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you can explore other episodes and dive into our discussions on the future of education and write a review of the show.

I also encourage you to join the conversation and let me know what you want to know using #WIWTK on social media. That’s #WIWTK. For more information on Stride and online education, visit Stride learning.com. I’m your host, Kevin P.Chavous. Thank you for joining. What I want to know.