California Connections Academy @ Ripon will open as a public charter school in the fall, becoming the latest in an exploding array of online options in the area.
It will join this year’s online startups — Turlock Unified’s eCademy Charter at Crane and Modesto City School’s Modesto Virtual Academy — as well as current district online programs and at least a dozen independent charters.
Online schools have, it appears, gone viral.
Though its home district is in San Joaquin County, it is eligible to sign up students from all adjacent counties as well: Alameda, Amador, Calaveras, Contra Costa, Sacramento, Santa Clara and Stanislaus.
Ripon Unified Superintendent Louise Johnson said the district did its homework before granting the charter and sees it as partnering with the online group. The district will provide some arm’s-length oversight, but the charter school will manage its own finances and answer to its own board of directors.
“We were very favorably impressed,” Johnson said. “The program is quite interesting because they have a mix,” she said, listing online webcasts, real-time classes in which students interact with the teacher and classmates, and traditional work.
The district’s enrollment is stable, Johnson said, and she sees the charter as attracting home-schoolers and students who were using other online options.
“I think the instructional program is solid and if I’m going to have students in a virtual school, I want the instruction to be that solid,” Johnson said.
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