As school districts grapple with how to meet the growing needs of exceptional learners, two leaders from Springfield Public Schools in Springfield, Mo., shared a creative solution that’s making a big impact. It’s a virtual learning program known as Launch.

At a Friday morning session at the AASA national conference titled “Leveraging Virtual Learning to Meet the Needs of Exceptional Learners,” Nicole Holt, deputy superintendent of academics at Springfield Public Schools, joined Nichole Lemmon, director of Springfield’s virtual learning and strategic planning. The latter created the Launch program in 2011 after 12 years as a high school teacher.

The school district created Launch, which is now an online consortium of 400 school districts from across Missouri that provides special education, English language learning and gifted and talented programs. Launch now serves 24,000 students across the state.

“Virtual learning is not for everyone,” admitted Holt. “It is necessary for some special education students to be in traditional classrooms in order to get the support they need.”

Launch offers a personalized environment for students that allows the teacher-student ratio to stay around 33 to 1, Holt said. All teachers are either retired or have specialized in special education.

Amid teacher shortages and shifting community needs, the service helps to fill gaps that are only growing wider in schools and communities, the two said.

In special education, for example, the “teacher shortage is real,” Holt said, adding that one in five special education teachers do not have the appropriate certifications. Special education services via Launch are often supplementary to school-based learning, and the students' cases can continue to be handled by their districts, Lemmon explained.

For English language learners, Launch offers programs in state-required classes, such as English 1, to ensure that students can graduate high school while receiving the specialized attention they need, Lemmon said. Many of these students are scared to go to schools, and the online classes tailor learning to them by being able to easily translate textbooks into various languages.

Because of the level of instability that many English language learners face today, Holt said, there’s been a 20 percent jump in virtual English language students since January on Launch.

Lemmon said she’s working actively to “advocate for English learning in Missouri, and make sure they are part of a school community.”

Launch provides accelerated learning pathways for gifted students, which are not required by the state of Missouri. Lemmon shared the experience of students from the Kirkwood district who took a bus to a separate campus in order to receive higher-level math. With Launch, “students don’t have to miss out on other classes; they can take the courses they want right in the library,” Lemmon said.

Virtual learning also offers an opportunity for students who are almost gifted, but didn’t quite make the cutoff. “Enrichment courses for kids who are either almost qualified or are not able to attend allows us to spread advanced learning to more students,” Lemmon said.

For teachers, Launch comes with extra benefits. Lemmon said. With Missouri ranked as 49th in teacher pay in the country, Launch is able to supplement that by giving a sizable stipend to teachers.

Virtual learning did not start or end with COVID-19, and there are ways to harness the benefits of virtual learning while still giving students the best education possible, Holt said.

To educators considering creation solutions to support exceptional learners, Lemmon encouraged them “to lead with yes and [give] students the best opportunities possible.”

(Ruthie Feinstein, a sophomore at Benjamin Franklin High School in New Orleans, is a reporter for Conference Daily Online.)