3 years since COVID-19 closed schools, online learning in Arizona is here to stay

When Paradise Valley Unified School District reopened in-person learning in the fall of 2020, Jessica Pioquinto initially planned to send her two children back to in-person classes.

But then she felt the pull of reasons to keep them in remote learning. She was still recovering from a car accident, her children were concerned about bullying, and she was a stay-at-home parent with time to help with their schoolwork.

“They get more personal attention,” Pioquinto said. “For example, they can easily contact their teacher and set up a Google Meet, and the teacher will help them out.”

Three years after the COVID-19 pandemic abruptly forced Arizona schools into virtual learning, the online options for families like Pioquinto's are more diverse than ever. Large and small public charter school companies offer online programs. So do some public school districts. Microschooling options, where a small group of students gathers to learn together, have cropped up. Choices exist for both asynchronous and real-time learning.

There may be many options, but one thing is clear: Elementary and secondary online learning is here to stay even as some districts find the programs impractical, and training teachers to be effective online may be challenging.

Now, many students using online instruction are doing so by choice, not necessity.

“Some of the families felt a level of success and comfort with the digital education that was being provided that they didn’t expect,” said Eric Patten, communications director at Yuma Union High School District, which plans to continue running its online school.

That sentiment resonates with Pioquinto, whose children are now in an online program run by Paradise Valley Unified.

“We found a structure and a schedule," she said. "Everything seems to be flowing great for us.”

District schools find online learning helps students who need flexibility

Yuma Union has been running YODA — the Yuma Online Distance Academy — for over a decade. The average yearly enrollment was 15 to 20 students in the years before the pandemic, but then it soared. The 2020-21 school year saw more than 130 students enroll.

The yearly enrollment number has dropped since that pandemic-induced high, but YODA enrollment remained higher than average — 49 students — this past school year, according to the district.

In particular, the program is seeing more interest from first-year high school students.

“Our freshmen coming in, they’re not ready for the big pool yet. So this is one of their options,” said Lisa Anderson, Yuma Union's associate superintendent.

At J.O. Combs Unified School District in San Tan Valley, students who struggle to wake up on time or who need flexibility because they work have found online school an appealing option, said Pat Goolsby, principal of Combs Center for Success, which houses the district's online program, Combs Online School for Success.

“Some of our kids went back to the traditional school after the pandemic, and they spent a little time there,” Goolsby said. “And they made the decision to come back to online learning because they really liked that better.”

Phoenix Union High School District's Phoenix Digital Academy has been particularly popular with students who attend school and work, like Connie Lopez, the student body president.

“I chose to attend Phoenix Digital Academy because I needed flexibility to work a full-time job and attend school,” Lopez said during a presentation about the school at a governing board meeting.

Some districts eliminating online options

Paradise Valley Unified, which serves portions of northeast Phoenix and north Scottsdale, started its first online school in 2009, allowing students to take online courses at their own pace. That option was moderately popular before the pandemic, said Heather Brelo, assistant principal of PVOnline, the district's online school that is now almost 15 years old.

But after the district returned to in-person learning following pandemic-related shutdowns, some families, worried about COVID-19 but also unnerved by the sick days and quarantine that came with in-person school, opted to move their children to remote school.

In the 2020-21 school year, the district started PVConnect, an online school that offered real-time instruction to meet the growing desire for distance learning. But after the 2022-23 school year, Paradise Valley Unified wound down PVConnect, in part as the district determined that some of the younger grades do best with synchronous instruction, particularly for reading, and that an in-person classroom is the best place for that.

Going forward, Paradise Valley Unified families will still have access to online learning through PVOnline, which will incorporate more real-time instruction for early-grade students but still primarily offer instruction that students complete on their own time.

“We’re really looking at what grades do well with online learning and what grades need more support,” Brelo said.

Alhambra Elementary School District, which serves portions of west Phoenix and Glendale, closed its online school in June because enrollment had declined and a significant number of students struggled to remain engaged in online learning.

“Online learning just isn’t the right fit for everyone,” said Melissa Gonzales, the district's deputy superintendent of academics, at a governing board meeting.

The closure will also save the district about $1 million, said Gonzales.

New online charter schools pop up as competition

Before the pandemic, there were just a handful of big public charter schools that dominated the online learning market: Primavera Online School, run by American Virtual Academy, Sequoia Choice Arizona Distance Learning, which EdKey runs, Arizona Connections Academy and Arizona Virtual Academy.

Since COVID-19, other charter schools have entered the online learning marketplace, increasing the competition for remote students.

The number of charter schools registered as Arizona Online Instruction programs, a longtime remote learning option that the state funds at 95% for full-time students and 85% for part-time students, nearly doubled from the 2020-21 to the 2021-22 school year, according to data from the Arizona Department of Education.

But some of that growth seems to have cut into the numbers of the longest-standing operators, data shows.

Primavera Online had 7,030 students enrolled in the 2021-22 school year. This past school year, it had 6,399 students.

EdKey's online school had 5,324 students enrolled during the 2021-22 school year. In 2022-23, the school’s enrollment was 3,062.

ASU Preparatory Academy, the charter school network affiliated with Arizona State University, is one of the charter operators that has seen significant online student growth over the past few years.

ASU Prep Digital, the network's K-12 online school, had 3,454 students in the 2022-23 school year, up from 276 during the 2018-19 school year.

That growth has come from expanding what grades the school serves, but has also benefited from a broader interest in online learning, said Amy McGrath, chief operating officer at ASU Preparatory Academy.

“What can we do to make sure we don't lose our student population that's demanding flexibility to some of the online providers and instead provide our own?” was the question ASU Preparatory Academy leaders asked in the first year of COVID-19 schooling, McGrath said. “The market of full-time online students has increased since the pandemic.”

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Online offers options, but teacher training can be challenging

Even as online learning has rapidly grown, targeted training for teachers and school leaders overseeing virtual learning seems to be lagging.

The charter network American Leadership Academy, for instance, had been developing an online school when the pandemic hit. The network accelerated the opening of the school and trained their online teachers alongside their in-person educators, said Melody Hudson, director of marketing for Charter One, the company that manages the network.

Jacob Skousen, who studies educational policy and leadership at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, has been asking school districts around the country how they prepare online school leaders. So far, he’s found a dearth of preparation options.

That’s important because, while the content students learn may be similar to in-person schools, online schools may need to play a different role in helping students develop interpersonal skills or stay engaged, he said.

Online school principals interviewed by Skousen and his colleagues also said it is more challenging to connect with the parents of online school students.

There is “not a single principal preparation program that's designed to prepare online school leaders,” Skousen said.

ASU Prep Digital has stepped into the training gap for teachers. Its Arizona Virtual Teacher Institute has trained more than 19,000 teachers around the state in online instruction between August 2020 and May 2023, according to the institute's latest quarterly report. That training is free through support from the Arizona Department of Education and the Helios Education Foundation.

Some districts may avoid training or hiring online teachers by contracting with another entity for instruction. Yuma Union’s online school hires teachers through the Mesa Distance Learning Program run by Mesa Public Schools.

Online learning often supplemented with in-person experiences

Thursday, July 6, was graduation day for Primavera Online and Mys'Anyla Porter was thrilled to be walking across the Arizona Financial Theatre stage in person after spending most of her high school experience remote.

Her family had coordinated clothing for the big day. Everyone wore matching shirts announcing themselves as Porter's "grad squad." The back of each shirt said the family member's role: grandma, lil bro, mom.

"Online was way easier," said Porter, who graduated alongside several hundred peers. "It was always quick and easy to do my work, and I could even go ahead sometimes."

Next, she hopes to begin her studies to become a special education teacher. But, for now, "I'm going to go home and celebrate," she said.

While most of Porter's learning was online, her school wasn't alone in creating in-person ways to experience high school milestones.

Many online schools go out of their way to offer in-person experiences or services that approximate some of the community and support built into most brick-and-mortar school experiences.

At ASU Prep Digital, virtual students can attend annual regional meetups, participate in student clubs and attend an in-person prom.

Online students in Yuma Union can access counselors and social workers at the district's physical schools.

At Phoenix Union’s Phoenix Digital Academy, students have a newspaper club, an adventure club, and a meditation and mindfulness club.

“Bringing students and staff together for in-person events is the key component in building a community and connection to school,” said Phoenix Union online student Kalilly Gomez in a presentation to the governing board.

Pioquinto and her children, who are in online school through Paradise Valley Unified, have been meeting with other families with students in online learning programs. Together they go to the park or the zoo, giving her children some much-needed social interaction, she said.

“Online school is a great option right now, especially how technology has evolved,” Pioquinto said.

Yana Kunichoff is a reporter on The Arizona Republic's K-12 education team. You can join The Republic's Facebook page and reach Yana at ykunichoff@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Some AZ families, and schools, choose online learning for long haul