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Virtual Schools: Serving Students in Online Education

A vision teacher/Orientation & Mobility Specialist shares the challenges and rewards of serving VI students enrolled in K-12 virtual schools.

As a vision teacher/Orientation & Mobility Specialist working for a private non-profit agency, I have had the opportunity to work with several virtual education agencies in my state. The availability of these K-12 online programs is growing, and they are a good option for many students to complete their academic requirements, especially students who have complex medical needs. Serving visually impaired students in these settings presents both challenges and rewards, and in this post I will share some thoughts based upon my experiences serving virtual school students as a contracted employee. In some geographic areas virtual school students may be served by a public school special education program, but in my case the virtual schools I have served have contracted for vision and O&M services with the private non-profit agency for whom I work.

Challenges:

Despite these challenges, there are definitely some advantages to online schooling for both students and the vision-related personnel who serve them:

Rewards:

To sum up, enrollment in virtual schools is growing, and this educational environment can be a good alternative for some students. While there are challenges in serving a student with a visual disability who is enrolled in a virtual school, they can be overcome with the patience, flexibility, and persistence that are required of service providers in any setting. It would be interesting to hear the perspectives of vision teachers who are serving braille readers in the virtual school setting.

Editor’s Note: This post was first published on Paths to Technology in June 2018.

By Luv2TeachAll

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