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Swartz Creek Academy Stresses Responsibility, Growth, and Relationships

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Richard Thompson - Mentor, Swartz Creek AcademyRichard Thompson is the Dean of Students and Director of Operations at Swartz Creek Academy. The Academy is an alternative education school in Swartz Creek, Michigan, that provides students an opportunity to earn their diplomas by taking courses in online or blended formats. Richard’s program emphasizes rigor, responsibility, and growth when working with students in alternative settings. Michigan Virtual™ staff spoke with Richard about how his school establishes practices that focus on relationship building and allow students to take control of their learning. Hear directly from Richard in the videos below, and check out the YouTube playlist for even more insights.

What are the characteristics of a good mentor, and what training is valuable for mentors?

How do you instill or empower desire in your students?

How do you set expectations for your students?

How do you help students tackle challenges and grow?

How important are relationships?

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Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute

Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute

The Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute (MVLRI) is a non-biased organization that exists to expand Michigan’s ability to support new learning models, engage in active research to inform new policies in online and blended learning, and strengthen the state’s infrastructures for sharing best practices. MVLRI works with all online learning environments to develop the best practices for the industry as a whole.
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We’re sorry to inform you that we have reached capacity for several of our Semester 1 and Trimester 1 courses. You’ll notice when attempting to enroll students in our Student Learning Portal that some courses are unavailable. While we are no longer accepting new enrollments for these courses at this time, many courses continue to remain open for enrollment.

With many students across the state 100% remote, demand for our online courses is greater than ever before. Because every course we offer is taught by a Michigan-certified teacher, this high volume of enrollments has created capacity issues for our teachers who provide each and every student with individual feedback.

While the Michigan Virtual team anticipated and planned for significant increases in student enrollments this Fall, the increased demand we’ve experienced has been unprecedented. As a result, we are taking steps to hire even more part-and full-time teachers to support larger numbers of student enrollments for Semester 2 as well as for Trimester 2 and 3. 

For schools that still need online learning options this year, please fill out the form at the bottom of our virtual pathways page to meet with someone to discuss other solutions. While some of our teacher-led courses are full, we may still have the capacity to help you in upcoming terms or can discuss timing to implement a whole-school or collaborative program in which local teachers from your school/district use our online course content to teach students. We also have free course content and resources available for you to use.

We know this is an incredibly stressful time for all, and we’re sorry if the courses you’re looking for are unavailable. We never want to turn away a student who wants to learn from us. Our top concern, however, is student success, and we have a policy to not take on additional enrollments if we cannot guarantee that all students will have a quality online learning experience. 

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we navigate the unusually high volume of enrollments we are receiving.