Why am I writing this blog about something that doesn’t exist? Well, because it should exist. This is a blog dedicated to bringing about the creation of an idea or better yet, a new future. West Virginia is behind the times in education, and as always, it is our children who suffer. West Virginia has no public charter school law. Geographically we are an island. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia all have charters. In fact, West Virginia is only one of ten states without charter law.

This is about choice. I have nothing against “brick and mortar” public schools. I still have chats with some of my middle school and high school teachers who really impacted me positively. However, all kids do not fit into that cookie-cutter mold. Honestly, I probably would have wanted to go to a cyber school if such a thing existed in my time.

The reasons are few, but important. Let’s start with academics, and here, I have few complaints. I think my school did a fine job with the subjects it provided. Still, I came from a somewhat rural school, and some of the more niche or special-interest classes were not offered. Also, a classroom setting tends to tie the hands of teachers in terms of tailoring education to a student’s needs. It doesn’t matter if a student is the next Ben Franklin or a penal center lifer, they both have to sit in Mrs. Smith’s 9th grade English class and read chapter two of “The Red Badge of Courage.” This comes despite the fact that student one still needs help on vocabulary and student two just got done reading some Frank Herbert on his own time at home.

My second reason I, as a teen, would have wanted cyber school is because I did not need the social aspect of traditional school. I swam, even in college actually, but my high school athletic director refused to grant my high school a swim team because he thought it wasn’t worthy of being a sport. So, I swam on YMCA-type teams and even other school’s teams. I was a member of the National Honor Society, but we didn’t do anything. I did contribute to our school’s creative writing magazine, but who can’t post anything to a blog these days (AHEM.) I just had other social networks.

All of this is to say that the “brick and mortar” mold wasn’t for me. If my kids want to go to a brick and mortar school and I think that is best for them – great! But what if they don’t? Right now, my only choice is moving my family to a neighboring state.