Students across Chatham-Kent and Sarnia-Lambton will continue to be offered the option of virtual learning next year.
The Lambton Kent District School Board announced Wednesday that elementary and secondary students (Grades 3-12) will once again be able to learn virtually for the 2024-2025 school year.
"Administration at the two schools offering the program both supported the interest in continuing to offer virtual learning," said LKDSB Superintendent of Education Mary Mancini. "We have found that for a small but stable group of our students, it fulfills a particular need."
According to the board, 50 students are currently enrolled in virtual learning at the elementary level and about 150 at the secondary level.
All students currently registered for virtual or in-person learning in 2023-2024 will be automatically pre-registered for virtual or in-person learning for 2024-2025.
Parents or students wanting to return to in-person learning or move to remote learning for 2024-2025 must contact the school they are currently attending by February 28 to initiate a transfer of programming for the 2024-2025 school year.
"We talked to the students and they expressed interest in continuing virtual learning," said Mancini. "There may be some interest from other students who want to move into virtual learning and some students who might want to move back to face-to-face. We're expecting that the numbers will be relatively stable next year."
Elementary students who register for virtual learning become a students of McNaughton Avenue Virtual School. High school students who are registered in virtual learning become a student of Lambton-Kent Composite School.
"Every individual school doesn't have their own virtual learning school, so we kind of combind them all into one entity."
Enrolment in the virtual learning program is intended to be a permanent, year-long commitment. Students will not be able to opt in or out of in-person and virtual learning during the 2024-2025 school year.
"This is some student's prefered way of learning," said Mancini. "In a lot of ways, this is the future."
Parents who may any specific questions about their children and virtual learning are encouraged to conact their current school directly.