JC Schools virtual learning provider, parents report challenging start yet smooth first month

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

While the majority of Jefferson City School District students have been back in the classroom since August, another group is learning at home and facing their own challenges.

JC Schools is partnering with a Springfield Public Schools program called Launch for families who did not want to send their students to school buildings amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.

According to school board documents, 1,363 students are enrolled. That is larger than 75% of the districts in Missouri.

This virtual learning option did not come without challenges, as the start date was pushed back a week at the end of August because of a lack of teachers in the Launch program.

The Director of Virtual Learning for Launch Virtual Courses Dr. Nichole Lemmon said this year about 120,000 students from 337 school districts are participating in their courses. In a normal year, they usually have 20,000 students.

"We had to decide to pause, get it right, and open it up in a week," Lemmon said.

She said the district has been easy to work with and is even providing staffing to work with Launch to assist with the need. JC Schools reported in a school board document that 7 teachers from the district were working with Launch.

"Because parents are at home learning with their kids, the amount of support that is needed is very high," Lemmon said.

A continuing issue for Launch is the amount of parent support calls that are coming in. Lemmon said the call volume and wait time for support is still high, but have tripled their support staff just within the past week.

Lemmon said after the first two weeks, the majority of feedback from parents has been positive and grateful.

"I think what most people understand and have patience for is, that this is hard for everybody," Lemmon said. "Parents saying it took us a little while to work out the kinks but we love it."

Sarah Quick, the parent of a 2nd-grade student enrolled in Launch through JC Schools, said she made the last-minute decision to go online for safety reasons.

"At first, it was horrible. We didn't have enough teachers, it was just really unorganized," Quick said. "But after about the first week when we finally had a teacher for every subject it's been going a lot smoother."

She said her daughter is actually getting better grades in the online courses because she can pay more attention because there are fewer distractions.

Quick is working from home and said balancing helping her daughter with class along with her own work can be a challenge, but the program is flexible enough to do work when it's convenient for her family.

While she said she has heard multiple times from her daughter's school, checking in about how everything is going, she hasn't heard from the school district administration since the beginning of virtual learning.

Another parent Candice Boley reported the same thing, saying she feels like her family is being left out of the district because they chose to go online.

"Some acknowledgment of the fact that our children are still community members of the school district itself, " Boley said. "Nothing major or overboard, just to check and see if there is anything we do need."

It also concerns her that she is not made aware of other students from JC Schools that are also in the virtual classes, saying her daughter is the only person from Jefferson City in here class.

"Generally the students are in class together and still have the friends to communicate with and we have no knowledge of that," Boley said. "Knowing all of the other elementary schools in Jefferson City, there have to be other 3rd graders."

Boley also said the first few weeks of classes were extremely hard, as her student was assigned several teachers before having one full time. She also said the large class sizes are causing some technology issues during classes.

At this point, she is happy with the education her daughter is receiving after the hiccups at the beginning of the school year.

"Initially I had major reservations because we went for two solid weeks with no teacher and zero communication on what was going on," Boley said. "But the person she has now is phenomenal and she has exceeded any I could have hoped for in-seat or virtual."

ABC 17 News reached out to the JC Schools for information about how the launch program is working but did not immediately receive a response.

Watch ABC17 News at 9 and 10 for the full story.