By Barbara Frey, Principal of Colorado Connections schools Unlike a traditional bricks-and-mortar school environment, the virtual school offers you the ability to get an immediate and accurate snapshot of your students’ and school’s performance. At Connections Academy, our Development Team has created a proprietary Learning Management System This closed intranet system allows our students’ learning coaches (typically their parents) to communicate with their teachers; check off their student’s attendance; view and/or download lessons; and check lessons off, once completed. As the principal of the school I am able to retrieve numerous reports that allow me to drill down to such details as number of lessons taught, attendance, teacher/student contact history, modifications, or learning style profile and test scores. This same information can be generated on a school-wide level, allowing for greater accountability and reporting functions to the state or district. I can see a snapshot of my school or I can view information on an individual student. This data can tell me how many students are falling behind, how many students are failing a specific subject, or how many students are excelling. This data allows me to work closely with my teaching staff to make adjustments and modifications to the curriculum to maximize student achievement.
