Registration, info meeting this week for Dist. 55 Virtual Academy

Update: District 55 has announced the meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 14, will now be available on YouTube and registration is no longer needed. The link will go live at the beginning of the meeting. 

Laurens, South Carolina – Laurens
County School District #55 (LCSD 55) announced in a press release on Saturday the development of a full-time online virtual academy learning option for students in grades 5K through 12 beginning in the fall of 2020.

Laurens County Virtual Academy (LCVA) is designed to accommodate families who may not be ready for a return to face-to-face instruction due to COVID-19 concerns or for those families and students who found online learning to be a good fit during the last several weeks of the 2019-2020 school year.

An LCVA online information meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, July 14,
at 6:00 p.m. To register for the meeting visit www.laurens55.org. If anyone has questions regarding LCVA, please email them to virtualacademy@laurens55.org. Your questions will be responded to within 1 business day and information regarding Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) will be shared on the district website (www.laurens55.org). 

LCSD 55 is asking families who wish to elect LCVA for the 2020-2021 school year to complete their registration form(s) by Friday, July 17, 2020.  A separate form must be submitted for each child registering for LCVA. All students who register for LCVA will be committing to at least one full semester of attendance. Students attending LCVA would still be able to participate in extracurricular and other activities at their home school. The number of students registering for LCVA by July 17, 2020 will play a significant role in determining other options for the return to school in the fall of 2020.

LCSD 55 recently asked students, teachers, and parents to respond to survey questions for planning purposes. They received 981 student responses from 5^th – 11^th grade students, 502 teacher responses, and 998 parent responses. In the student survey, 93.1% of student respondents indicated they did have internet access at home. Only 63.4% of student respondents indicated they were willing to return to face-to-face instruction at the time of the survey with 47.9% indicating a preference for the return to a five (5) day per week schedule with regular class times. Teachers reflected a similar breakdown with 60.8% willing to return to face-to-face instruction but only 46.3% indicating a preference for the five (5) day per week schedule. The parent survey responses showed that 53.5% of parents were comfortable sending their children to school for face-to-face instruction. Despite those numbers, 54.1% of parents were in favor of e-learning for the first semester of 2020-2021. 

LCSD 55 serves the communities of Laurens, Waterloo, Gray Court, Hickory Tavern, and their surrounding residents in the northwestern half of Laurens County, SC.