Exclusive MPIA Results: MCPS Virtual Academy Under the Microscope with a Disappointing Report Card

December 20, 2023

Background

Since the start of the pandemic, questions have arisen based upon both the effectiveness and demand of virtual learning. This has continued as MCPS created a Virtual Academy when most students returned to the classrooms.

Moderately MOCO received an exclusive MPIA response with answers to questions about the MCPS Virtual Academy official enrollment data.

MCPS also recently released data on the report card results from their virtual academy and we’ll take a look at that after the MPIA results.

Virtual Academy Enrollment over time

The following chart was received showing MCPS Virtual Academy enrollment by grade by school year over the past 3 years.

Looking at the grand totals for each of the past 3 school years, you can see that it went from 2629 (2021-2022) to 1565 (2022-2023) and then dropped again to just 878 for the current 2023-2024 school year.

This represents a 40.4% drop from 2021/2022 to 2022/2023 and a 43.9% drop from 2022/2023 to 2023/2024 and a 66.6% reduction from 2021/2022 to 2023/2024.

Virtual Academy Enrollment by School

You can view the full MPIA results for Virtual Academy Enrollment by school here:

FY24-161-Virtual-Academy-Enrollment-by-School

Virtual Academy Report Card Results

With permission, using summary provided by Dr. Jennifer Reesman on X/Twitter about Virtual Academy evaluations by MCPS. The full thread can be found here.

Chronic Absenteeism

Chronic absenteeism: elementary aged children have significantly higher rates of chronic absenteeism for virtual academy compared to similar students in person schooling. Concerning that this is so high among an age group where chronic absenteeism should not be this high pic.twitter.com/zNMlaWaCcl

— Dr. Jennifer Reesman (@jenreesman) December 14, 2023

Math and Literacy Outcomes

🚨🚨now let’s look at literacy outcomes. At grades 3-5 students in virtual academy demonstrated significantly worse progress in reading compared to in person similar peers. A note in the report indicated that virtual academy literacy instructional time was CUT. Unacceptable pic.twitter.com/cTBfmAFySA

— Dr. Jennifer Reesman (@jenreesman) December 14, 2023

MCPS Summary and Delay to Post

Link to full report here and please note the report is dated March of 2023 but was only made public this week. Why delay releasing it? The superintendent presents proposed budget today. the @mocoboe @MoCoCouncilMD should know the data https://t.co/he0PKX08TE

— Dr. Jennifer Reesman (@jenreesman) December 14, 2023

I do want to thank the authors of this report. It is a thoughtful and helpful analysis. Why leadership has his this report though is beyond the pale and unacceptable.

— Dr. Jennifer Reesman (@jenreesman) December 14, 2023

Virtual Academy Cost Analysis

The MCPS Virtual Academy has been paid for by a combination of federal ESSR funding and the operating budget. However, this year the ESSR funding is expected to go away and we are still waiting on the full MCPS budget so it remains to be seen the full cost of this program. The cost per student for the MCPS Virtual Academy operating budget has increased significantly each year but it remains to be seen what will be the cost in the coming year without ESSR funding. Source here.

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