Should students be allowed to take Virtual School classes?
Competition to get into college isn’t a new thing. For decades, students have been engaged in a battle to reach the top of their class.
The major determining factor in this race is students’ GPAs. Lately, though, taking challenging courses in school just doesn’t cut it. Florida students are lucky enough to have other resources, though; Florida Virtual School (FLVS) offers the opportunity to boost one’s GPA and gives students a competitive edge on their resumes. FLVS, which is free for Florida students, has been used in past years as a way to retake failed classes, earn missing credits and these days, it can help boost your GPA. With college admissions becoming more selective each year, along with the incalculably stiff race to become Valedictorian, it is completely logical to take a few semesters of an easy class and get an A to boost your weighted GPA. Classes are offered from the manageable (such as Sociology) to the incredibly paradoxical and impenetrable (such as Calculus BC).
Hard-working students craving both a high GPA and high rank in their class need to take advantage of this situation. Earning a top spot in your class has never been so accessible. Even if you don’t want to be number one, FLVS has opportunities for every student. Say you decided school wasn’t your forte freshman and sophomore year and then decided as a junior you needed to start trying in order to raise your GPA. Or maybe you found a scholarship you want or need but there’s a GPA requirement. In swoops virtual school.
FLVS has ridiculously kind teachers, flexible deadlines and assignments that are allowed to be turned in multiple times (depending on the class) for a better grade. Students across the state have made use of this. For those kids, virtual school has become their new Google Chrome home page and the daily logins, weekly phone calls will be totally worth it the day their transcript reflects an improved GPA. There have been many opponents to FLVS, but the program was designed to enrich students’ education and provide plentiful opportunity to teens seeking more from their high school years.
It’s about time we embraced this GPA-boosting tool instead of criticizing it.
