The final article in a series

The New England Laborers’/Cranston Public Schools charter school is unique in many ways, from the students who choose to attend there, to the staff that chooses to teach there, to the course offerings that are available there. One unique component to the school is the newly instituted Project LIFT.

Funded by the Rhode Island Foundation as a pilot program from October 2008-October 2009, Project LIFT (which is an acronym for Learning Information for Tomorrow) is “an academic credit recovery program which uses virtual learning as a supplement to the teacher’s instruction in a classroom,” according to NEL/CPS Executive Director Dr. Michael Silvia.

Students participate in virtual learning coursework using the program VirtualLearningAcademy.net in a computer lab under the instruction of teachers in the lab with them. The teachers are there not only to make sure the students are doing their coursework, but also to help the students if they encounter any stumbling blocks along the way.

Project LIFT was originally designed with the sole purpose of allowing seniors who were in jeopardy of not graduating the opportunity to recover graduation credits. The use of the program has spread; for example, students who are forced to take time out of school due to medical issues are eligible to use the virtual learning program. There are currently 76 students involved in Project LIFT. Students can participate in the program in all core subjects: math, English, history and science. Some students are taking more than one virtual learning course, but students cannot use virtual learning for all four core courses.

Virtual learning nevertheless has many benefits and is now considered a necessary part of student instruction.

“From Ohio to California, most states mandate that their students take at least one virtual learning class throughout their high school career because most colleges are now offering virtual learning,” said Silvia. “At some point, we’d like to move virtual learning into the freshman year to provide them with a variety of experiences and provide them with successes.”

Using the virtual learning model, students are automatically introduced to research skills on the computer. It can also be a great asset to those students with special needs and/or learning differences.

“The academy is hoping to be able to address barriers to education through virtual learning,” said Silvia.

Talia Ronci, a junior at NEL/CPS, is currently taking Integrated Math II as a virtual learning course.

“I read the text, solve the problems, and answer all of the questions,” Ronci said. “I like working on my own, [so] it’s better for me. I like learning by myself.”

Fellow student Chris Catauro, also a junior at NEL/CPS, agrees. He’s currently taking Algebra II as a virtual learning course.

“I find working on the computer easier,” Catauro said. “I go at a faster pace than a normal student, and I can go as fast as I want. If I have a question, I can ask a teacher without waiting. There are no distractions.”

Catauro has also taken economics and government classes as virtual learning courses.

“When there are online projects [for the classes] I do them as a Word document and add them as an attachment,” he explained.

Lucille Parrillo, a guidance counselor at NEL/CPS, agrees that the virtual learning program meets the different needs of the students.

“We mostly use it for credit recovery in the Junior and Senior years,” Parrillo said. “[But] we can modify it, it can be flexible to meet the needs of the students with special needs.”

VLA.net offers full-credit courses, as well as half-credit courses. A half credit course, Parrillo explained, could be used to fill a half-credit elective requirement for graduation for a senior.

For even more unusual circumstances, the virtual learning courses at NEL/CPS can be doubly helpful.

“If students transfer from another school district, it’s difficult to schedule a course in because of when they transfer, so they can schedule a virtual learning course and complete their coursework that way,” said Parrillo.

Virtual learning courses are beneficial to the instructors as well. Teachers can see where the students are in the course and can check the students’ work as soon as it comes in, explained Liz Reichardt and Cathy DiSegna, two of the virtual learning lab instructors.

“For the most part, the students are self sufficient, but we give them individual help as they need it,” Reichardt said. “The textbook is online, the questions are underneath. The mid-terms and finals are there. The interaction between the student and instructor is all done online.”

“We sit with them when they’re having a problem,” DiSegna added. “Some of the text is almost at the college level. For students on IEPs [Individual Learning Plans] or with learning disabilities, we need to help them.”

The virtual learning classes are timed, and if students are late they need to make up their time. The virtual learning programs also track how long the students take on a lesson. If a student rushes through a lesson, the teacher can tell.

“The program averages all their grades too,” said Reichardt. “I can look at a chart and know if they’ve completed a lesson, if they viewed a lesson and where they are in the lesson. When they sign on, they can see their grades.”

Parrillo notes that teachers can modify, add or delete assignments or exams in the program as necessary.

“For example, in the U.S. history course, there is a research paper at the end of lessons 30-36,” she said. “The teacher … took what he liked to make it more like what he would assign in the classroom and gave those requirements to the students. He knows these students and their abilities and he modified to meet their needs. He focused on what was the most important for the students’ needs.”

Is virtual learning taking the place of a student’s classroom education? Silvia is a firm believer it is not.

“We want virtual learning to be part of the classes, not to displace the classes,” he said. “We try to merge some of the ideas of virtual learning with some of the classroom work. It gives the student the benefit of the virtual learning course with the relationship with the teacher. We’re trying to develop the dynamic between virtual learning and the classroom so that it caters to the teacher in the classroom.”

According to Silvia, the sole purpose of Project LIFT is to help increase Cranston Public Schools’ graduation rate. District-wide, 10 percent of Cranston High School seniors do not graduate, according to the RI Department of Education.

It is the hope of NEL/CPS “as Project LIFT continues to evolve, that statistic should decrease on a yearly basis by three percent,” Silvia said.

In turn, he continued, “the success rate for placing students into a career should increase by 10 percent since many of the students will be potential high school graduates when applying for a job, rather than high school drop-outs.”