Abbotsford Virtual School

Abbotsford Virtual School (abbreviated as AVS)^[1] is a Distributed Learning school, located in Abbotsford, British Columbia, that provides collaborative educational programs for Kindergarten to Grade 12 students and any BC resident wanting to complete courses to graduate. All adults can take some courses at AVS for free and courses can lead to an adult graduation. Abbotsford Virtual School offers online courses, as well as "any pace, any place" paper-based courses. Virtual courses are teacher-paced, semester-based courses which operate like a regular high school course but delivered through the Internet. Teachers and students remain connected through the semester via e-mail, text message, Skype, and Collaborate.

History of Abbotsford Virtual School

Abbotsford Virtual School is an amalgamation of three Abbotsford School District school programs: W. J. Mouat Virtual School, Rick Hansen eSchool and Abbotsford Electronic School. In 2001-2002, Des McKay (retired Superintendent and former Principal of W. J. Mouat) and Rob Comeau (current Principal, W. J. Mouat) lead a school-based initiative with several teachers at W. J. Mouat Secondary School^[2] to teach courses in an online environment. Three courses were created: Principles of Mathematics 11, Chemistry 11 and CAPP 11/12. By 2006-2007, Abbotsford Virtual School expanded to 25 courses. Student success rate for completion was in the 90% plus range. Rick Hansen Secondary School developed several online courses in a different format obtaining high success rates as well. Abbotsford Electronic School spawned from home-based learner programs in Abbotsford to a home-learner support school. Nearly 300 students were enrolled by 2005-2006. Principal Don Martyn of the Abbotsford Electronic School helped to amalgamate these three programs into Abbotsford Virtual School.

Staff and Location

Abbotsford Virtual School is located at 33952 Pine Street, near the historic centre of Abbotsford, on the site formerly known as Philip Sheffield Elementary School. Mr. Brad Hutchinson is the current Principal. The school has 3 full-time teachers dealing with home-educated learners and 18 online teachers. Some of the online teachers are part-time, having a face-to-face teaching assignment in one of the School District #34 (Abbotsford) high schools.

Unique Programs

Abbotsford Virtual School offers several unique programs. Spanish Language and many IT courses are available online. The Animation and Game Design programs are offered by industry experts.

Notes

External links

• Abbotsford Virtual School Official website
• LearnNowBC Official website

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