Miami-Dade School Board agrees to stop using K12 learning platform

DORAL, FL – K12 learning platform will no longer be used for online education as Miami-Dade School Board  unanimously voted against My School Online.

After much controversy arose last week following technical difficulties and a series of cyberattacks that tarnished the start of a new school year, the district decided to open a survey on its parent portal to learn what people think of My School Online, which is run by the for-profit tech education company K12.

Comments made by the public, mostly negative, were read in a board meeting where it was determined teachers had to find a different and approved distance learning option, other than the current one, such as Microsoft Teams to teach their students. 

Students in grades 6 through 12 stopped using K12 and are instead opting for Microsoft Teams and Zoom, as per recommendation from the school district. 

According to the Miami Herald, during the meeting, four board members in total proposed items that talked about the failures perceived in the first week of classes. 

About this, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho explained no money has been paid to K12, including the $15.3 million sticker price, although he also said to the board, K12 has been used for a decade for virtual learning opportunities. 

My School Online was chosen by the school district for this year following complaints of how students learned back in march when the coronavirus pandemic forced schools to shut down.

Between the arguments exposed to take the K12 path, one has to do with how hard it was to track student’s participation online by the platforms used back then. 

But parents and teachers agreed that the solution proposed with K12 learning platform wasn’t the ideal one either as they feel it is not only difficult to access to but it also has other important flaws such as an inappropriate curriculum for younger students.