students with career pathways. In addition, student success coaches have been hired to further assist with online learning. Smedley maintains, “Like anything else, you can turn students loose on a virtual platform, but they still need that coach and that facilitator to help them through the program.” As for the expanded online options, Boles acknowledges, “We found through surveys and conversations that we had students going to college who had never taken a virtual class, and we had some online kids that were doing credit recovery, and so we started offering blended learning to try to better prepare them for college, and to offer them online opportunities.” INVESTING IN FACILITIES AND SAFETY To complement these enhanced online offerings, FLCS has updated its media centers, creating a more welcoming environment for learning. “We brought in different furniture and tried to make it an inviting place, because we realized with the “We took a look at the numbers, and we said, we can meet the needs of those kids, and then they’ll get a Frankton-Lapel diploma.” Although this program was implemented at the high school level prior to the pandemic, it was expanded to elementary students during COVID to provide families with virtual options.“We no longer offer elementary, but we still have a strong virtual secondary program at this time,” he adds. Frankton-Lapel has partnered with e-learning provider Edmentum, helping to support virtual Where Indiana educators succeed and students thrive www.edmentum.com | 800.447.5286 K-12 Personalized Learning, Virtual Instruction, Credit Attainment, and Career & Technical Education Proud to partner with Frankton-Lapel Community Schools 294 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 06, ISSUE 03
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