"When the pandemic first hit, online school was a bit messy for everyone," Lucero, a stay-at-home mother from Colorado Springs, told CNN Business. When the Colorado Springs School District announced plans earlier this year to launch a permanent online school option, called the Spark Online Academy, starting in August, Lucero spoke to her daughter about taking that alternative route and then signed her up for it. For those families interested in online school, the options appear to be growing and gaining popularity. "As students and parents become more familiar with virtual learning and how students can be successful in a virtual environment -- and as the 'system' gets better at providing more effective virtual learning options -- there will be more students from brick-and-mortar environments choosing a virtual option," he said. Virtual school student Anthony Colmenero completes an offline assignmentTracy Colmenero, who lives in a rural Texas town, registered her two sons for Connections Academy's gifted program for the 2020-2021 school year when their local school struggled to get set up with virtual learning.

Source: CNN July 16, 2021 15:00 UTC