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Back **Case Study: How Can a Small School District Finance an Online High School? or The tale of two online schools in California - Rob Darrow**

//How can a small school district develop and maintain a virtual school? Various reports have identified the cost factors for developing and sustaining online schools (Cavalluzo, 2001; Adsit, 2003; Anderson et al, 2006). This presentation will share doctoral research examining how a small school district with 2500 high school students in California may sustain an online program. In addition, financial lessons learned from a part time virtual school that was discontinued will be shared.//

[|Session Handout: DarrowHandout decision chart and online cost chart.doc].
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Really quickly, here some notes on the session (live blog is available in replay at http://tinyurl.com/5s55bn).

The big finance issue that came out here is that ADM formulas for per pupil funding don't handle the flexibility of online programs. Since students can (and do) enroll in more than just 4 classes (which is what ADM is typically calculated on), it is hard to identify how to fund those extra classes. Part-time programs are harder to fund, largely because they are dependent on special appropriations, grant money, or simply excess budget funds (and who has those these days!).

Another deterrent seems to be the reluctance of traditional high schools to lose their ADM (makes sense) and so they are resistance to letting students take online courses if it is going to siphon off a part of their ADM to pay for those courses.