Student Enrollment Process
How does it work?
The enrollment process
Many of our students are taking online courses for the first time when they come to Village Virtual either as a homeschooler or as a referral from one of our partner schools. If you have no prior experience with online learning, don't worry. An Enrollment Specialist will communicate with you throughout, but here is an overview of the process:
Request a course
The easiest way to communicate student information to Village Virtual and to alert us that a learner is interested in taking an online course is to complete a course request at the Register Here page of our website.
For students associated with a district, charter or private school, the person listed as the contact under "School Approval" on the course request is contacted. Obtaining school approval guarantees that the course will be accepted for credit by the student's school and added to the student's transcript once the course is complete and a final grade is generated. In many cases, parents already have written approval from the student's school and may simply share that with us. Either way, we want to make sure our students are enrolling in the correct courses and that the schools are part of the support process for the learners.
Homeschool parents are contacted by an Enrollment Specialist directly as no approval of courses is required. We can include any umbrella organization in our weekly progress reporting and final grade reporting if the family so desires. Otherwise, the homeschool parent receives the information and reports whatever is required to the district, state, or umbrella organization as appropriate. Contact your state's department of education or local school system for information regarding any specific homeschool policies applicable to your learners. Below are links to states where Village Virtual frequently serves homeschool families:
Make payment
Payment for courses can be made at the Pay Now page of our website or by phone. Parents may pay for courses at the time of the course request or wait for confirmation of school approval (if applicable). An Enrollment Specialist will contact parents for payment via the email listed on the Course Request once approval has been obtained for students who are associated with district, charter or private schools.
Drop Policy: Courses that are purchased by parents directly from Village Virtual must be dropped with less than 15% of the coursework completed and within the first 10 calendar days of a fall or spring class or within the first 5 calendar days of a summer class in order for a full refund (minus a $50 registration fee) to be requested. The 14- or 5-day period is calculated from the course start date.
Check for communication
Parents, students, and schools (if applicable) will receive an enrollment confirmation and welcome email immediately upon being enrolled in an online course and continue to receive emails from Village Virtual at least weekly throughout the duration of the course. Students or parents who do not receive this initial communication or fail to receive weekly progress reports should first check their email's Spam or Junk folder and mark as "Not Spam" if our communications are delivered there. If the communications are not in the Inbox, Spam or Junk folder, please contact a Support Specialist immediately. Email is a fundamental support tool for online learning, and we will help you resolve any issue you have receiving our communications.
Other frequently asked questions:
Is there a cut-off date to enroll in a course?
Village Virtual utilizes rolling enrollment to allow maximum flexibility for students to enter courses. This means that students may enter a course at any point during the school year so long as the student has time to complete the enrollment before the start of summer school at the beginning of June.
How long will the student have in the course?
During the fall and spring semesters, Village Virtual provides great flexibility in the time frames students may choose to complete an online course. Most of our students elect to take half-credit or full-credit recovery courses in a block format (nine weeks). However, students may elect to complete these courses in a traditional format (18 weeks), particularly if they are working at a school lab that is based on a traditional calendar. Students who are not able to complete the course work in the time frame established at course registration may purchase extensions in the course.
Is your school accredited?
Because Village Virtual is working in partnership with credit-granting entities, this is not a concern for any of our parents. We contact the students’ schools to make certain that the credit-granting entity approves the student for the courses and by that approval acknowledges that the credit earned will be added to the student’s transcript and applied to graduation requirements. Homeschool parents are typically free to make curriculum decisions for their students and no further approval or accreditation is required. Parents should understand the homeschool laws of the state in which they reside and report the mandatory data to the appropriate credit-granting entity. Village Virtual can assist in providing attendance and grade reports for homeschool families.
Summer sessions
Village Virtual offers a six-week summer school session for half-credit and full-credit recovery courses, and an eight-week session for full-credit new learning courses that start at the beginning of June and run through the end of July.
Session dates for Summer 2023:
Six-week half-credit & credit recovery session: June 5th - July 14th
Eight-week full-credit new learning session: June 5th - July 28th