‘Virtual high school’ students lose in court

Stacy J. Willis

Friday, March 30, 2001 | 11:20 a.m.

Nevada high school students who want the state to pay for them to attend "virtual high school" lost a battle Thursday in Washoe County District Court.

A judge shot down an attempt by White Pine County School District to get per-pupil funding for any student in any county who enrolls in its Nevada Virtual High, a computer-based distance learning program.

White Pine School District filed the lawsuit against the state last summer, after the Department of Education ruled that the district is not allowed to collect dollars allocated to other counties for students in those counties. Nevada Virtual High is one of three district-based virtual high schools in the U.S. that offers grades 9-12. Tuition is $340 per course for students living outside White Pine and free to those in White Pine. Since the school was established two years ago, it has graduated more than 50 students and now enrolls 185 students, some from out of state.

White Pine Superintendent Mark Shellinger said he has a waiting list of Clark County students who want to take courses in the virtual school if the state would pay.

Shellinger had hoped the school would turn around his financially troubled district by drawing per-pupil dollars into his district. White Pine has had to rely on special state appropriations to relieve more than $2 million of its $5 million debt in the last four years.

But Judge Norman Robison granted summary judgment to the state, saying that public funding of virtual schools needed to be addressed by the Legislature before the courts.

Prepared for this possibility, Shellinger already has a bill in the Legislature that would do essentially what he had asked the court to do: allow per-pupil dollars to follow the students across county lines.

Senate Bill 108 is opposed by teachers unions and the State Department of Education.