NASD Launches 'Norristown Area Virtual Academy'

According to The Times Herald, the Norristown Area School District this year is launching the Norristown Area Virtual Academy – a new cyber school designed to lure students living in the district back from other cyber charter schools.

"We have a large number of students in the cyber charter schools," Chief Academic Officer Deborah Chagin told the Herald. "The classes that we’ll offer are a better quality because we’ll have some oversight; they will match the requirements for graduation that we have for our own brick-and-mortar school students, and when you finish at the Norristown Area Virtual Academy, you will get a diploma from our high school."

"The virtual academy diplomas are really not making it big out there," she said. "For a long while, the U.S. Military didn’t even accept them as evidence of high school."

The program, designed with help from Chester County Intermediate, is designed for students in Grade 6 and up, but not all students will be eligible for the program. According to the Herald, the program is meant to bring other cyber-school students back into the district and administrators will only consider "unique and extreme cases" in regards to students already attending a Norristown area school.

Read more about the program here.