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While the Florida Virtual School has announced it’s opened enrollment for the upcoming 2023-24 school year, state education leaders are seeing decreases in the number of online students completing courses, which affects its funding. PHOTO/FVLS
While the Florida Virtual School has announced it’s opened enrollment for the upcoming 2023-24 school year, state education leaders are seeing decreases in the number of online students completing courses, which affects its funding.
According to reporting from the News Service of Florida, FLVS has put a pause on hiring and is taking other cautious financial measures amid a drop in full-time students completing courses over the past year.
The completion of courses is a key metric for the school, which only gets paid if students finish online classes.
After a significant influx of enrollment in recent years driven by students and families pivoting to online learning during the pandemic, the number of students completing courses through the virtual school has dwindled.
“Yes, the drop overall has been because of COVID — the return after COVID — in all of the financials, actually,” Louis Algaze, president and CEO of Florida Virtual School, said during a meeting of the school’s trustees last week.
A quarterly financial report given to the trustees outlined the decrease. Per NSF, it showed full-time FLVS students completed 50,624 courses from July 1 through March 31. That represents a decrease from the same time period in the prior year, when full-time students completed 68,003 courses.
FLVS did see an increase in part-time “flex” course completions — 376,444 from July 1 through March 31. During the same period a year earlier, the school posted 368,430 completions.
A FLVS release this week stated its full time student count “significantly increased over the past three years” — from 5,770 student completions in the 2019-20 school year to more than 9,600 students expected to complete their courses this year, and some 1,100 Florida Virtual High School seniors participated in the in-person or virtual graduation ceremony.
Still, Florida Virtual School’s expenditures have outpaced revenue growth within its operating fund, according to the report.
The school reported $233,406,574 in revenue through the end of March — an increase of nearly $4 million from the previous year. But it spent $227,676,941, nearly $13.9 million more than last year.
NSF said Algaze attributed the boost, in part, to spending on salaries, and that The virtual school has avoided cutting staff in anticipation of “slight increases” in course completions in the coming year.
“We did not have a layoff of staff in order to make sure that we maintained the services for students,” Algaze said. “And in (the) projection of the upcoming year, we would have hated to have laid off a lot of staff and then as we project some increases here in the next year, slight increases, to have to have different staff come back on board.”
Algaze also noted that Florida Virtual School has put a “pause” on all hiring, and has not been “backfilling” positions.
“Talking about layoffs is not something that engenders a lot of morale in staff. So, we have plans if needed. We have not backfilled a lot of positions as natural attrition has occurred — as people are going to be retiring here soon, as folks have resigned for whatever reason,” Algaze said.
FLVS Full Time courses are taught by statecertified teachers using a curriculum developed specifically for the online learning environment. Like in the in-person model, students take six courses per semester and earn their diploma upon meeting graduation requirements. Students have access to more than 190 courses including core, electives and specials, languages, Advanced Placement, and Career and Technical Education courses, available tuition-free for Florida residents.
And, starting July 1, FLVS Full Time students of military families now have the flexibility to participate in assessment administration at their parents’ or guardians’ current military duty station.
Florida Virtual School’s revenue is derived primarily from the Florida Education Finance Program, the state’s main funding source for public schools, NSF reported.
Ryan Dailey of the News Service of Florida contributed to this report.
