Valley View School Board members blasted the for-profit charter
company K12 Inc. and its non-profit partner Virtual Learning Solutions
at a hearing last night over plans to bring an online charter school to
the Romeoville and Bolingbrook areas.
For nearly two hours,
district officials grilled representatives from K12, a publicly held
company that sells cyber schooling to states, on everything from its
academic performance and accommodating students with disabilities to its
lack of data showing student growth and success.
Virtual Learning
Solutions and K12, which operates in at least 29 states outside of
Illinois with two schools in Chicago, want to form the Illinois Virtual
Charter School @ Fox River Valley for Valley View and 17 other school
districts, including Plainfield and Oswego. Last night was the last of
18 hearings on the charter proposal.
“My fear is there’s
something being hidden from us,” said Valley View School Board member
Leo Venegas. “It sounds like it’s this fabulous program, but no
substance, and I just don’t know if I can bring that to my community and
say, ‘There’s value here, but we have no proof of the value.’” Read more »
Thomas Chalmers Specialty Elementary School on the West Side isn’t
slated to shut down at the end of the school year, but its entire staff
could be replaced by the 
For more than two years the 