Virtual School Was Real Solution

By Susan Lampert Smith, Wisconsin State Journal (Opinion)

12/15/07

The schools are virtual, but the children learning from them are very real.

And, sometimes, real kids have real problems.

Brennan Fredericks, 16, had big problems in middle school. His parents, Dan and Donna of Black Earth, said his former school did little to protect him from bullies. He has life-threatening food allergies and, his mother said, other kids would throw peanut butter sandwiches at him and taunt him.

"He'd sit all alone at a table labeled 'peanut' and get picked on, " Donna Fredericks said.

It got so bad that the thought of going to school made him ill.

After home schooling their son through much of eighth grade, the family was delighted to find the Monroe Virtual High School, a charter school run out of the Monroe School District.

To fulfill high school requirements, Brennan can choose between high school and college courses, which arrive with books and online homework. When it 's time to take exams, a teacher from the Monroe school drives to Black Earth and administers the test at the local library.

It has worked well for a kid who struggled in regular school.

"I don 't know what we would have done without them, " said Dan Fredericks.

Sadly, they may find out.

On Dec. 5, a state appeals court ruled that one of the state 's virtual schools broke state law because it allowed parents to act as teachers without the license required of all public school teachers. It also said the school violated a law requiring charter schools to be in the district that operates them.

If the Supreme Court passes on the case, the ruling could shut down all 12 virtual schools and their 3,000-some students.

No surprise, the suit was brought by the state teachers' union.

There are all kinds of ironies.

For one, no one bothered the Frederickses when they were home schooling their son and really were his sole teachers.

For another, his teacher, Jeff Schaal, and all of the other teachers at the Monroe Virtual School are licensed and dues-paying members of the Wisconsin Education Association, which brought the suit.

So are the teachers at the Wisconsin Virtual Academy, the school that was the subject of the suit.

Rose Fernandez, the mother of four virtual school students, said the union opposes virtual schools because "this is a way of having a teacher handle more students, and the union just can 't abide that. "

Last year, a bill to straighten out the questions about virtual schools passed both houses of the Legislature, only to be vetoed by Gov. Jim Doyle.

"Hundreds of calls from our parents didn 't matter, " said Fernandez, president of the Wisconsin Coalition of Virtual School Parents. "The one call he got from WEAC, his biggest campaign supporter, mattered. "

Maybe there are some problems with the current system, but the union and governor owe it to our children to solve them quickly.

What about those ads that proclaim that every child deserves a great school?

The union and the governor are taking this great school option away from children like Brennan.