Leading an Online School

Terminology

Distance education started over a century ago with correspondence schools and evolved with changes in technology. By the twenty first century, it became commonly known as courses delivered to remote locations through computer or video technologies. A relatively new category of distance education is online learning, which relies on the Internet for curriculum and instruction (Rice, 2009). Most online students are in higher education. However, the number of virtual or online schools servicing K-12 students has increased dramatically in the past few years.

Virtual schools are online learning platforms that deliver synchronous and/or asynchronous instruction, usually to secondary level students. The terms “online schools,” “cyber schools” and “virtual schools” are used interchangeably for the purposes of this study, although the case analyzed is New Hampshire's Virtual Learning Academy Charter School (VLACS) for middle and high school students across this primarily rural state.