Virginia Digital Learning Landscape
Virtual Virginia, a DLC State Affiliate, was instrumental in conducting the research for this profile.
| State virtual school? | YES |
| Multi-district fully online schools? | YES |
| Online learning requirement for graduation? | YES |
| State approval process for online providers? | YES |
| State approval process for online courses? | NO |
Virginia has a state virtual school and significant district online learning activity. There are no multi-district fully online schools.
Virginia’s state virtual school program, Virtual Virginia, served 35,338 supplemental course enrollments in SY 2019-20 and over 400 full-time enrollments. Virtual Virginia also served 52,000 students by providing online courses and content, technology, training and support to districts. The district provides program management and online teachers. More recent enrollment data was not available for this profile.
All public schools in the state has access to its own instance of a statewide LMS at no cost, plus access to Virtual Virginia’s free digital learning resources that can be imported into the statewide LMS.
State-authorized multi-division providers may serve students in grades K–12 with fully online, supplemental, and blended programs through partnerships with local school boards. The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) maintains a list of the 22 approved multi-division online providers in the state including the types of online learning options available from the provider, and the school divisions that use them.
District online programs include:
Virtual Prince William is a supplemental online learning program.
Fairfax County Public Schools’ Online Campus provides supplemental online courses for middle and high school students. District students may enroll in up to 2 credits as part of their standard 7 high school credits without any fees or tuition. Out of district students can enroll, but must pay tuition.
Loudoun County Public Schools’ Virtual Loudoun offers supplemental courses for high schools students and full-time online options for K-12 students.
York County School Division’s (YCSD) Virtual Academy is open to students Pre K-12.
Virginia Beach City Public Schools’ Digital Campus is a supplemental online program for middle and high school students.
Chesapeake Virtual Academy offers online courses, taught by Chesapeake Public Schools teachers, for students in grades K-12 through a mix of synchronous and asynchronous instruction. A full-time online option is available for all students and students at the high school level may take online classes along with in-person courses.
State Policies
No major legislation impacting online and/or blended learning was passed January through August 2022.
SB738 (2010) allows local school boards to contract with approved multi-division online providers to provide out-of-district online learning programs to students in grades K–12. Local school division programs or consortia of division online programs in which “fewer than 10 per cent of the students enrolled reside outside the geographical boundaries of the school division” need not participate in the approval process.
Virginia is one of the few states with a virtual course graduation requirement. Students can meet this requirement through an online course or a blended learning experience.