How Schools and Districts Are Stretching Resources and Expanding Options

As teacher shortages continue, educators often feel the constraints of lower budgets, fewer staff members, and larger class sizes, ultimately leading to more responsibilities and bigger workloads for the teachers and administrators who remain. At Edmentum, it’s our goal to provide online tools and customized consulting to make educators’ lives easier. See how other schools across the United States are partnering with Edmentum to find effective solutions to address challenges created by teacher shortages.

Solving Recruiting Woes and Raising Graduation Rates

Goodrich Middle School and High School, which serves a rural community of less than 500 in East Texas, had difficulty recruiting teachers due to its size and location. After weighing options, administrators chose to find a virtual learning partner to allow students to take some of their courses online with a state-certified teacher. The school decided on Edmentum’s fully accredited EdOptions Academy for this new endeavor. With an Edmentum partnership, Goodrich ISD has achieved a 100-percent graduation rate, and it no longer needs to worry about filling teacher vacancies and can offer students over 400 rigorous courses to choose from.

Solving Teacher Shortages While Expanding Student Options

Telstar Regional Middle/High School was facing declining enrollment and budget constraints, largely because it was only able to provide students with limited course options focused around core curriculum and graduation requirements. The school was struggling to offer students sufficient opportunities to explore interests, pursue possible career paths, and prepare for college.

The school decided to partner with Edmentum’s EdOptions Academy to give students access to fully accredited virtual courses across a wide variety of elective, CTE, and advanced subjects in addition to core course options. The breadth of course options and personalized attention from EdOptions Academy’s state-certified teachers have allowed students, especially those who had previously struggled to find areas of interest, to take ownership of their learning and become more engaged. The partnership has also served as an engine to increase parental involvement, and students have successfully passed EdOptions Academy courses 90 percent of the time.  

Bringing $500,000 in Funding Back to the District by Reclaiming Online Students

Shikellamy School District was losing students to other online school programs, resulting in a significant loss of funding dollars. To retain student enrollment, district administrators knew that they needed to provide more course options and greater flexibility, but they had a limited staff, timeframe, and budget to do so.

After having success with Edmentum using Courseware as part of its credit recovery initiatives, the district reached out to Edmentum about partnering with EdOptions Academy to start its own virtual program. Thanks to thoughtful program design and student recruitment efforts, within its first year, the Shikellamy Virtual Academy brought 78 students back into the district, resulting in a return of over $500,000 in funding.

Edmentum works with over 8,000 districts, helping to solve their most difficult challenges, including teacher shortages. Our Courseware digital curricula, in combination with our EdOptions Academy virtual program, may be just the solution you need to expand course choice and to fill difficult teaching roles. Get a quote today!