They say they have faith in their first-time authorizer. Sutherlin and his colleagues say they intend to learn from mistakes made by other virtual schools, including ones they were connected to. ![]() Read: As students signed up, online school hired barely any teachers - but founder’s company charged it millions ![]() Meanwhile, school leaders say that it’s unclear when students will have access to the farm and that students won’t be required to visit the property, despite a promotional video promising “students will gain real hands-on knowledge and skills” at the “farm campus.” The school will be monitored by an inexperienced rural public school district, a model that charter school advocates worry won’t provide sufficient oversight and is allowed under what some see as a loophole in Indiana state law.Īnd the farm itself was purchased for the school by the school board’s treasurer, also a co-founder, who will eventually charge the school rent - a deal whose full details haven’t been made public. Its founder and academic director have ties to other virtual charter schools with questionable track records. What’s unclear is whether the school can live up to its lofty promises, or end up serving as another illustration of how Indiana’s charter school law fails to adequately regulate virtual schools.Īlready, Indiana Agriculture and Technology School has hurdles to overcome. Sutherlin and his team are laying these ambitious plans at a time when virtual charter schools across the country are growing rapidly and facing criticism for failing to serve students. Sutherlin, a long-time political operative, says he wants to fundamentally change how Hoosier students learn about agriculture, starting with the perhaps counterintuitive idea of using a farm as the physical outpost of the online Indiana Agriculture and Technology School, set to open in July. But when founder Allan Sutherlin looks out over the land, he sees that and more. Six hundred acres of mostly dormant farmland, ponds, and forest in southern Indiana hardly seem like they would be the centerpiece of the state’s newest virtual charter school.
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