FORT PIERCE, Fla. - Two years ago, St. Andrew's Episcopal Academy was struggling. It lost one head of school, then another. Enrollment fell to nearly 100 students. Its leaders were weighing a split with its affiliated church.
At St. Andrews Episcopal Academy, the surrounding town (including an art gallery down the street) serves as an extended classroom.
With the help of some outside consultants, the school crafted a revival plan. The next school year, it started accepting tax credit scholarships, giving low-income students a new way to afford tuition. It began rolling out a blended learning program. It added the high school grades, housing students in a converted law office next door. (The first floor now doubles as a cyber cafe). It expanded its course offerings with the help of the Virtual School of Excllence, a separate venture Angelone also leads.
Most strikingly, though, it redefined its curriculum, turning the surrounding town of Fort Pierce, Fla. and the Indian River Lagoon — a tidal estuary just outside the gates of its waterfront campus — into an extended classroom.
Students interested in culinary arts can learn about baking with the Cake Lady. Varsity Sports, a screen-printing shop, offers vo-tech internships. Gerald O'Sullivan, a local artist who also teaches college classes, invites students into his gallery to learn to paint.
Above all, at a school that overlooks one of the most diverse marine ecosystems in North America, Angelone said: "What you have going for you is water." Students can learn to Scuba dive, sail on the Indian River Lagoon, or help university researchers catalog invasive species on nearby spoil islands.
Now, in the second school year since the overhaul, enrollment at St. Andrew's has tripled. Scholarships account for about a third of total enrollment. (Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog, helps administer the scholarship program.)
Along the way, the school abandoned plans to raise tuition as a way to boost revenue, or to build a giant new campus in the fast-growing western reaches of St. Lucie County, Michelle Lineal, who chairs its board of trustees, said in an interview.
"We really wanted to have a school that was all-inclusive, and raising tuition and asking parents to donate a tremendous amount of money" didn't fit that vision, she said.
The reviews from students speak for themselves. (more…)
Florida has long been a leader in virtual education, and exports K-12 classes all over the globe. Now, it's also home to a newcomer that is targeting a faith-based niche.
This spring, St. Andrews Episcopal Academy quietly launched Episcopal Virtual, and a sister operation, Anglican Virtual, with backing from its parent church and the Diocese of Central Florida.
The goal is to make online K-12 classes available to the 80 million members of the Anglican Communion — which encompass Episcopal and Anglican churches.
The new private virtual institution wants to give Episcopal and Anglican schools a new avenue to offer courses (like Latin) for which they couldn't otherwise afford full-time teachers, and to give home schoolers around the world a new way to take accredited courses that are steeped in their faith.
Perhaps it's fitting that the project is launching in Central Florida, the region that gave birth to Florida Virtual School, which has long offered online classes beyond the state's boundaries. (more…)
