PA Distance Learning Blog

As part of their 2018-2019 professional learning goals at PA Distance Learning Charter School, school counselors, Ms. Morgan Jasin and Ms. Katie Griffith organized and led a School Counselor Best Practices for Student Engagement symposium.

During the 2016-17 school year, PA Distance Learning Charter School launched our first literary magazine club, Bridging the Distance with Ms. Hannah Lewis at the helm.

This year Dr. Ellen Cavanaugh, founder of Grow a Generation teamed up with PA Distance Learning Charter School to create an Odyssey Fellowship program.  An Odyssey Fellowship is a ongoing opportunity for students to dedicate time each week to move through an odyssey into a fascinating topic of their choice. Fellows (students in grades 3-12) partner with mentors from around the globe and venture deep into a topic from the cutting edge of science and technology. The Odyssey takes them through four stages where students identify a specific passion in new science and technology, find the businesses and colleges that are doing work with it, tell stories from the field working alongside professional mentors, and begin to develop their own unique identity as a leading spokesperson in the field.

What is CEW and how do we bring it to life in a cyber school setting?

Today our staff is spending an entire day devoted to professional development, and there’s a common thread throughout this year’s “Ed Camp.”

Being a school in today’s ever-changing world means we have to adapt. We believe it is education’s responsibility to adapt as the world changes, so we can best prepare students to thrive.

There’s one thing, however, that must remain consistent within our education: empathy.

Today, PA Distance students had the opportunity to hear from a Magda Brown, a Holocaust Survivor.

Education is about bettering the future: from a 6th-grader whose learning transforms how she sees herself to a graduate who starts as a first-generation college student. Improving individual futures, however, is only one part of education’s power.

We cannot forget another part of education’s power, especially as we are faced with the mass shooting at one of Pittsburgh’s synagogues this weekend.

All week students across the nation and at PA Distance are celebrating Red Ribbon Week to increase drug prevention and awareness.

 

 

At PA Distance, we use Red Ribbon Week as an opportunity to collaborate as a school-wide team and unify as a drug-free community.  Our entire staff spends the week teaching our students about the negative effects of drug and alcohol use, making better choices, and how to plan for a drug-free future.

PA Distance Learning teachers will present at the Drexel University School of Education Virtual Conference for K-12 Online Learning on October 5, 2018.

As the popularity of online schooling grows, so do to the many myths surrounding this type of education. Without further ado here are some common misconceptions associated with cyber schools:

Written by PA Distance student Isabella B.

When I went to my local public school, it was fine and I had good grades; then my school went on strike from October until the end of November. 

After the strike, it was December, then break, then PSSA prep and PSSA testing, but we were not learning.  The teachers would talk about the strike during school hours and not teach, and would even strike during school hours outside the building.  But the students were not allowed to talk about the strike.