In this current school year in the Klein Independent School District, students have had the opportunity to choose between learning from home or on campus, but up until January, there were virtually no rules for switching between online and on campus schooling. Now AP approval is required to make the switch and students with failing grades must be on campus, but next year, there will be no “Klein On Campus,” or “Klein Online Students.” Instead there will be KVA (Klein Virtual Academy), which is an entirely different school students must enroll in if they want to learn from home. Klein Virtual Academy is an online learning program that will be funded by the Texas Legislature and open full time for grades 3-12 during the 2021-2022 school year. 

I had the opportunity to speak with Amy Miller, the Chief Academic Officer for Klein ISD, who was able to go into detail about KVA and what this new school would bring for students who learn remotely. 

“This year, the way we set up a plan online and on–campus was really a quick response to the pandemic,” Miller said. “We worked quickly to pull together the resources we had to set up remote learning for our students to complete the school year during a situation that none of us had ever experienced.”

A survey was done back in March with about 3000 responses from online students saying that they wanted a virtual alternative for the next school year and from there, a virtual design team was set up to create an effective way for students to learn remotely. 

“Students will be utilizing Zoom like they have been the whole year,” Miller said. “We will have teachers dedicated only for our virtual students. We’re also looking at changing up what the schedules might look like to allow flexibility for students.”

Miller also informed me that KVA will have a full staff- and like any of the other Klein campuses- is its own school.

“Megan White is [KVA’s] principal and she currently is the principal at Blackshear Elementary,” Miller said. “We will have a counselor, a registrar and a secretary to get started, and then teachers from all the different grade levels and content areas to make sure that students have what they need to succeed academically.”

Miller expressed her contentment with the way things are looking for KVA after I asked her whether she thought it was better to learn remotely or on campus. 

“I think it’s really a personal preference for students. If you would have asked me that question two years ago I would have said they need to be on campus,” Miller said. “But we’ve seen in the last year that some students are really successful learning virtually, so I think when making a decision students need to be a part of that conversation, the family needs to be a part of that conversation and the school needs to be a part of having that conversation to see where we feel a student would be most successful.”

More information about KVA can be found at https://kva.kleinisd.net.