Florida Virtual School delays causing some parents to home school students

Many parents hoped that students going back to school virtually meant they would be able to go back to work, but Karissa Mandile now has to home school her child because of delays with Florida Virtual School placing her child into a class.

“We applied for the Florida Virtual School at the beginning of August for full-time and they lost my daughter’s application,” Mandile said.

She keeps experiencing delays.

“We had to be put in the Florida Virtual School Flex program and we keep getting emails from them saying that my daughter’s start date is getting pushed back,” she said.

For six weeks she’s been checking the same web page only to see that her child is still waiting for classroom availability.

Somehow, she’s still holding out hope. “Every day I wake up and I say, you know, I’m gonna get somewhere,” Mandile said.

Florida Virtual School officials say they’re serving 64% more students compared to last year, so they’re experiencing delays.

Finding enough teachers to fill the roles needed is another problem Florida Virtual School has been experiencing.

“We’ve been doing schoolwork, we’ve been doing math books, we’ve been doing sight words, we’ve been reading books every day,” said Mandile.

Despite her pushing on and teaching her daughter, she’s still tired of waiting.

“It makes you feel helpless to the point where maybe I should put my daughter in school even though there’s a deadly virus in the United States,” she added.

So for now, her only option is to continue waiting.

Florida Virtual School said that students are starting daily as they continue reviewing registration applications. Their goal is to get all full-time students who have already registered to start class by the end of September and all Flex students in by the end of October.