Novi Virtual

Mission

Novi Virtual aims to provide “a compassionate, committed, flexible community” for their students. Launched in 2021, the program intends to support students who may have fallen through the cracks in traditional school environments by balancing high expectations and compassion for students’ lived experiences.

Demographics

Novi Virtual enrolls, on average, 200 students a year. Approximately 40% of these students come from the Novi Community School District and 60% come from local, partner districts.

Students attend Novi Virtual for a number of reasons: to seek an online environment instead of an in-person setting, flexibility to travel abroad or participate in rigorous athletic schedules, or to access courses that their local school may not offer. A growing population within the program includes students who attend as an intervention for chronic absenteeism or behavioral concerns, including suspension or expulsion.

Experience Overview

Novi Virtual is available for students who attend the Novi Community School District or a partner district that has an established cooperative agreement. Students attending the program from a partner district remain enrolled in their home district where their per-pupil funding is also allocated. Regardless of their home district, all students have the opportunity to attend Novi Virtual full-time or part-time, allowing for flexibility to access courses that may not be available at their home school or that conflict with other scheduling requirements.

Students in grades K-6 can take their core courses as well as classes in art, media, music, and physical education through Novi Virtual. At the secondary level, students have access to core classes as well as asynchronous electives such as AP Psychology, Power Yoga, and marketing. Students who attend Novi Virtual can still participate in clubs, sports, and other extracurricular activities at their home schools.

Novi Virtual offers students a high-quality fully virtual program. They take a whole-child development approach, providing social-emotional learning (SEL) – particularly in elementary grades – restorative practices, and tailored supports for individual students to foster strong relationships. The program uses an adaptable, district-created curriculum that takes a modern classroom approach to pedagogy, building classrooms that can effectively differentiate and respond to students’ needs. Novi Virtual also offers 1:1 technology and works to ensure consistency across teachers’ virtual classrooms. A tailored orientation session welcomes students as they enroll, one of many foundational best practices designed to scaffold self-directed learning.

Learning In Action

Students have multiple options for personalization within their courses, allowing them to choose how to engage in lessons as well as the pace at which they complete their required work. At the same time, Novi structures the school day to help students stay connected to their learning. They are required to log in daily for attendance, and classes are often taught synchronously, with subsequent on-demand time where students complete assignments independently while having the opportunity to reach out to their teacher for live support.

High school students who attend Novi Virtual experience a flipped model which provides more flexibility. In this model, students drive their learning through more asynchronous options, allowing for choice in pacing and time to complete assignments around their other commitments.

Teaching In Action

Novi Virtual teachers are employed through the Novi Community School District and only five are full-time virtual teachers. Though required to teach the district-created curriculum, they have autonomy to customize learning experiences based on their students. To make the virtual learning experience as easy to navigate as possible, teachers maintain the same formatting in Schoology for their students, ensuring they can access critical links and content.

The learning model is built on teachers facilitating live instruction with some independent, asynchronous work. To ensure all learners are progressing, educators regularly communicate about their progress and offer high levels of support. Teachers at Novi Virtual lead with empathy and maintain high expectations which helps them build strong relationships with students and their families.

Conditions for Success

• Technology: Novi Community School District provides 1:1 devices and works with partner districts to ensure their technology has permissions for students to access learning at Novi Virtual. The district also provides hotspots for families without internet.

• Community and Culture: Since students come to Novi Virtual for many reasons, including as an intervention if they have not found success in a traditional school model, the program has intentionally built a culture around empathy and choice. Students and families have multiple options and entry points into how they want to interact with their educators, creating a safe place for students to engage (or re-engage) in learning.

• Student Support Programming: In response to the challenges that high school students can often experience with attendance, the program operates a flipped-class model where students have more agency over when they learn. This approach allows students to continue learning without the requirement to attend daily live instruction.

• Policies: Students can enroll in Novi Virtual at any point throughout the year as the program recognizes that students’ needs do not always align to specific school year timelines.

Other Key Highlights

Students may attend Novi Virtual because they need the flexibility to travel abroad to visit family for extended periods of time. To support this population, the program offers Virtual Flex, which provides instructional support for 16-30 school days in the event of a planned absence. With this option, students stay connected to their learning and are able to return to their home building at the conclusion of their travels.