Set your recording devices. The school in southern Tallapoosa County will be featured Friday morning on CNN, said principal Tom Cochran.

Cochran said he was informed last week that the news network would be featuring the school in a segment about Alabama’s ACCESS Distance Learning program, which offers students the option of taking classes online and through videoconferencing.

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“It’s better than a regular class,” said Aaron Phillips, an eighth-grader at Litchfield. “I can pick what I want to do, when I want to do it. I don’t have to do what everyone else is doing at the same time.”

The Alabama Connecting Classrooms, Educators & Students Statewide program through the state Department of Education provides classes and teachers, plus computer literacy skills, to students across the state.

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Schools and state governments have begun to take notice of the potential savings that virtual education can provide, with Florida, Arizona, and Alabama even establishing state-sponsored virtual school programs that offer courses to thousands of students a year.

The Florida Virtual School runs all year long, does not have a specific academic calendar, and has a staff of 1,000 full-time teachers that is on call seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., a significant shift for teachers used to working during typical schools hours from September to June. The school plans to enroll close to 240,000 students from 45 states and 30 countries this year, most of whom will only take a course or two with the school.

“We’re growing every year by 30 to 40%,” says Andy Ross, who is the chief sales and marketing officer at the Florida Virtual School. Ross claims that Florida Virtual School has saved Florida $22 million last year by offering its virtual courses to students.

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TUSCALOOSA | The Tuscaloosa City Board of Education unanimously approved a proposal Tuesday night to implement an online academic program that will allow students to earn credits on their own schedule.

During a board meeting, Zachary Barnes, the director of graduation success and dropout prevention for the school system, and Robert Coates, director of secondary education, spoke to the board about Bridgewater Academy, a fully accredited online school that allows students to have access course studies 24 hours a day.

As a credit recovery program, Bridgewater Academy makes earning course credits as simple as logging onto a website.

Barnes said that Bridgewater will not replace other programs the system uses for credit recovery, like Plato Learning.

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