The suit was filed in federal court in Virginia.

Investors claim the company, called K12, gave false and misleading statements about student performance on standardized tests.

They claim, as a result, K12′s stock traded at artificially inflated prices.

K12 operates and provides curriculum to the Idaho Virtual Academy online school and the iSucceed Virtual High School in Idaho.

“K12 disputes the claims made by this private law firm and will vigorously defend itself,” K12 Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Jeff Kwitowski told KTVB.com.  “As with any public school, test scores are publicly available.”

State Department of Education spokeswoman Melissa McGrath said the department had no comment on the specific lawsuit because it is not related to any school in Idaho.

For the rest of the article, go to Virtual school company faces lawsuit

But Penni Cyr says she’s up for the assignment.

Cyr is starting a three-year term as president of the Idaho Education Association after nearly 30 years teaching in Moscow public schools. Her husband, Craig, works at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc., in Pullman, Wash., and remains in Moscow, where their four adult children also live.

“I go home when I can, but it’s often time to work,” Cyr said.

Among her top priorities: A campaign to repeal the sweeping education changes that were signed into law earlier this year with backing from public schools chief Tom Luna and Gov. Butch Otter. The laws will go before Idaho voters in November 2012.

The measures approved by Idaho lawmakers limit collective bargaining to salaries and benefits, dump seniority as a factor in layoffs and require union negotiations to be held in public. Idaho is also introducing teacher merit pay and shifting money from salaries to help pay for the changes, which will arm every high school teacher and student with a laptop and make online classes a requirement to graduate.

“(Students) are going to be excited because they get computers,” Cyr said. “But I worry, are we experimenting on our kids? Where’s the research that shows one-to-one computing devices, requiring online course, is going to help students achieve greater?”

In Idaho, Alan Dunn, superintendent of the Sugar-Salem School District, says that he may cut entire departments and outsource their courses to online providers. “It’s not ideal,” he says. “But Idaho is in a budget crisis, and this is a creative solution.”

Other states see potential savings as well. In Georgia, state and local taxpayers spend $7,650 a year to educate the average student in a traditional public school. They spend nearly 60% less—$3,200 a year—to educate a student in the statewide online Georgia Cyber Academy, saving state and local tax dollars. Florida saves $1,500 a year on every student enrolled online full time.

For individual school districts, though, competition from online schools can cause financial strain. The tiny Spring Cove School District in rural Pennsylvania lost 43 of its 1,850 students this year to online charter schools. By law, the district must send those students’ share of local and state tax dollars—in this case $340,000—to the cyberschool. Superintendent Rodney Green, already struggling to balance the budget, cut nine teaching jobs, eliminated middle-school Spanish and French and canceled the high-school musical, “Aida.”

For the rest of the article, go to My Teacher Is an App

The Legislature established the IDLA in 2002 to expand course offerings to rural schools, and enrollment in the online program has grown by about 50 percent every year, reaching about 9,800 this semester, according to Nick Smith, IDLA’s director of education programs.

Smith, a former principal in the Bliss School District, said rural schools such as Notus have been at the forefront of online education in Idaho, and they offer lessons as districts around the state prepare to meet new graduation rules requiring students to complete two online classes to graduate.

After all, IDLA is one of the course providers that districts will turn to as they require online classes.

For the rest of the article, go to Online education finds bigger foothold in Idaho

The graduation ceremony was held at the Boise Train Depot, with 45 of iSucceed’s graduates attending, witnessed by more than 300 of their family members and friends. iSucceed Principal RaNae Jones gave an address, speaking about the 21st century skills the students learned in an online school environment and urging them to keep preparing for what lies ahead.

For the rest of the article, go to iSucceed Virtual High School grads celebrate

To date, advertising and promotional efforts for Southern California Online Academy — which is slated to begin operation on Aug. 11 — has attracted 164 students.

And the district plans to continue its marketing campaign.

The goal is to have 300 students enrolled in the school this year and to continue to boost interest in the program, which provides education via computer and communication with online instructors.

Godinez said that although, it has been a lot of work preparing for an online school, the effort has been rewarding. “I love it,” she said, noting that she has had the previous experience of opening an online school in Idaho.

For the rest of the article, go to Marketing Campaign Underway To Boost Enrollment At New LEUSD Online Academy

“I feel like we have less control (under this legislation) at the same time that we’re asking more from our residents and citizens,” Cvitanich said.

LPOSD’s financial challenges are amplified by the way student enrollment affects state support under Idaho’s public education budget formula. In the four-year period between 2007-2010, the district had the largest student population declines in the state. Its upcoming budget projects a further drop of 2.5 percent — about 90 students districtwide — for Fiscal 2012.

Approximately a third of those students are expected to move out of the area, but a shift in the majority of the others shows the dilutive effect of new education options, as more of the population migrates to charter and private schools or explores home schooling and online “virtual academies.”

For the rest of the article, go to LPOSD budget does ‘less with less’

“I’m disappointed and we’ll have to get creative, unfortunately,” Buhl School District Superintendent Byron Stutzman said. “There’s not a lot we can cut out. We can cut more textbooks, but we have to turn the water and heat on for our students so they can learn. It’s going to come from the salaries piece.”

Stutzman said elective programs will be cut with the teachers who once led them, but new online learning opportunities will fill in some of those gaps.

“In my thinking, the positions that are open will be offered online or through blended learning, which will mean bigger class sizes,” he said. “But wasn’t that part of the Students Come First plan? We can utilize the Idaho Digital Learning Academy, which allows us to offer variety to students.”

For the rest of the article, go to Idaho voters will pay $77.3 million to support local schools. Should the Legislature re-examine funding in Idaho?

“It’s been a difficult process to work through the announcement of my retirement,” Grant said. “But I get to embark on something new. I don’t see it as the end; I see it as an opportunity for a new window to open and for me to make a difference in a different way.”

Grant stated that his proudest accomplishments are the creation of many schools, including Sage Valley, Desert Springs, Lakeview Elementary, Vallivue Virtual Academy and Rivervue Middle School, as well as reaching Adequate Yearly Progress in both 2007-08 and 2008-09.

For the rest of the article, go to Vallivue superintendent leaves imprint on district

The new Minidoka Virtual Academy will open in August, blending online coursework with instruction from one of the 3,961-student school district’s teachers.

“There is an age-old rivalry between school districts and home school, which is just silly,” District Superintendent Scott Rogers said. “We want to embrace the fact that sometimes children need a different type of classroom. We can’t be afraid of that.”

For the rest of the article, go to New program to cater to home-schooled K-8 learners