RIO RANCHO, New Mexico – When Ashley Daniels saw her second-grade son earn a high score on a recent test, she knew he had just guessed the answers and gotten lucky. Daniels called his teacher and said he might need some extra support, despite his good performance on the test.
It wasn’t just a mother’s intuition. Daniels watched her son take the test from their dining room table.
The second grader attends SpaRRk Academy, a virtual learning program for elementary students created in 2021 by the Rio Rancho School District in New Mexico. Even as doors reopened to brick-and-mortar schools, administrators here saw the continued need for a virtual option in response to lingering concerns about COVID and to feedback from some parents that their children had thrived in online learning.
