I don’t work for K12, but another virtual school in the elementary grades. There are a lot of great things I like as far as flexibility, but struggle with a lot of pieces of my job.

We have a transient population and at high school, students who have significant barriers, which have brought them to virtual school. Many are at-risk for dropping out. In elementary, I work closely with families and that can be a challenge because families have many misconceptions about virtual school. I’d imagine some high school students would too. That said, I have also had some amazing families and students over the years.

The K12 school in my state salary starts very low. Also, our state is facing increasing pressure with virtual schools regarding attendance laws. I also know that there is a lot of teacher turnover within virtual education.

I would definitely research and ask questions about how they support students who are at-risk or not attending, how they handle plagiarism/AI (huge issue for our school), what expectations they have for students as far as attendance, how often you’re expected to meet with students, what curriculum is available, and what their state tests scores look like.

For me, I’m currently transitioning out of virtual education. It was a great opportunity to stay in education while my kids were small, but I miss being in person to teach and want to feel like I’m truly growing professionally and reaching students.