Originally aired on NBC Nashville on August 9. 2023
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – A new, tuition-free online public school started classes last week for kindergarten through 12th-grade students across Tennessee.
Volunteer State Virtual Academy (VSVA) offers a mix of online programs and offline activities led by teachers licensed in Tennessee. Any student in any grade level can enroll if they live in the state.
Around 600 students are enrolled in VSVA. Executive Director Stacy Smith said 1,000 more students are in the process of enrolling.
“It’s building everything from the ground up, which it’s a lot of work, getting all the students and all the teachers on-boarded, hiring all the teachers and the administrators and everything,” Smith said. “I was so, so impressed with the number of the teachers that we had apply.”
According to the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE), the number of public virtual schools in the state has grown by 103% since 2021. There are 59 virtual schools this school year.
Smith said VSVA is already looking to hire more faculty because they are expanding so quickly.
The reasons for doing virtual school vary from family to family, Smith said.
“It’s because of their lifestyle that they do a lot of traveling,” she said. “For some students, it’s because we’re able to ease some anxiety and maybe give them more control or the feeling of more control over their education.”
Sophomore Annaliese Davis told WSMV4 she likes the flexibility of VSVA because her family is very mobile.
“It’s just easy for me to do my homework anywhere, and do class anywhere,” she said.
Annaliese’s mother, Sophia Davis, said many factors led them to choose virtual schooling for Annaliese. One of those factors was safety.
“It was a little shocking for me that now when they’re building these schools, that they’re requiring them to have this bulletproof glass,” Davis said. “It’s not just the schools that are being affected. It’s the malls, or it’s a movie theater or what have you, but it does enable us to know where she is at all times. So it makes us feel a little bit safer.”
Online learning comes with its own challenges, though.
TDOE said in the 2021 to 2022 school year, 28% of public virtual students in Tennessee did not stay enrolled for the entire school year. That is significantly higher than 14% of non-virtual students who transferred.
During that same period, non-virtual schools demonstrated a higher rate of school-wide academic success compared to virtual schools, according to TDOE.
Annaliese, however, said she finds she likes multitasking. She feels VSVA is a good fit for her.
“It’s just the comfort of my own home and being in my own room and being able to sit there in my bed or through class,” she said.”
To learn more about Volunteer State Virtual Academy, visit https://vsva.k12.com/.
