The information in this lesson is supplied to provide you with a general understanding of IDLA's role in your school, as well as items each local district is responsible for and information associated wtih IDLA.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
With the exception of Advanced Placement and Dual Credit courses, where course fees are waived, IDLA will invoice the local district $75 per course enrollment. Exceptions to this include selected middle level courses that are offered at a discounted rate of $30 per enrollment or any discounts associated with custom sessions that offer shortened courses at $15 per enrollment. For specific detail on the current year fee policy, please see IDLA's Fee Policy on IDLA's Site Coordinator Resource page.
Funding for students, enrolled in an IDLA class during the regular school day, is just like other students in a face-to-face classroom. General funding is not provided to any student beyond the regular school day; however, different Advanced Opportunities programs are in place, through the SDE, to help with course costs.
For students who may have a financial need, scholarships are available. Scholarship numbers are limited but are available to students enrolled in overload courses and are valued at $50 per course. To ensure access to all students, IDLA asks that scholarships be reserved to 1 per student per academic session. Your regional coordinator is responsible for applying scholarships and can answer any question you may have on availability.
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For all students enrolled beyond IDLA's drop deadline, a grade report will be sent to the local school. Each class contains at least one item that is required to pass the course. Cohort classes have a required, proctored final exam or project that counts for 20% of the overall grade while Flex courses have a requirement to complete all discussion based assessments, projects and tests. Failure to complete any required item(s) will result in final grade of 10%.
IDLA will send a grade report for each student to the Site Coordinator at the end of a course. The Site Coordinator reports the final IDLA course score to his or her school's registrar. IDLA does not send out a grade of A, A-, etc, only a percentage score. The local school district uses the final percentage to assign a grade based on that particular school's grading scale. It is the responsibility of the Site Coordinator to report the percentage grade to the local registrar and to make sure it is recorded and transcripted. All IDLA courses have ISEE information assigned to courses/teachers that can be found under the "Reports" section of the Site Coordinator's homepage.
IDLA AP courses have undergone and passed a full AP Board Review. Students enrolled in IDLA AP courses must have the course transcribed on their permanent record as: IDLA AP English or IDLA AP Calculus, etc. Colleges accepting transcripts of AP work from students will only recognize board approved courses. The only way they will know it is through an approved program is if IDLA is noted in the course title on your school's transcript.
Though IDLA's Board of Directors has adopted IDLA specific policies surrounding all aspects of our program, local school policies have precedence over any IDLA policy where there may be a discrepancy. In any such instance, IDLA will work with each school to determine the proper course of action for individual occurrences. Below you can see a list of the various IDLA polices and manuals found on our website under the Site Coordinator section, under Resources.
As a Site Coordinator, you will play an important role in helping students find the class best suited to their needs. This section contains information to help your students determine the correct course and format for their needs, in addition to requirements of classes.
IDLA will only accept student enrollments through their local school. It is the school's responsibility to determine whether the course is appropriate for the student, with enrollment occurring through the local Site Coordinator. The school will be tasked with ensuring the student possesses characteristics to be successful online and that a support system is in place to help students acquire missing skills. Success rates of students are directly related to the amount of local support students receive.
In addition to personal characteristics, research provided by the Evergreen Education Group describes an overview of resources identified as being important to student success, which include:
Access to online IDLA courses at school
Study in a dedicated lab
Integration into regular classes as a dedicated period
Staff member(s) to monitor and supervise students and resolve issues
Process for counseling and preparing students
Every student enrolling in an IDLA class is required to complete an orientation prior to starting their class. This is designed to help students with navigation within class and only needs to be completed once but enrolling students prior to their course start date will provide students with time to complete. NOTE: IDLA provides classes in different Learning Management Systems (LMS) with a separate orientation required for each.
Below is a list of the student orientations your student may participate in.
In addition to our Orientation courses we also offer student a Start Here folder as seen in the Schoology version of the Site Coordinator course. The Start Here folder offers navigation tips, the course syllabus, and other necessary materials related to the course.
Image above of the Start Here folder is in every IDLA course providing the end user information on navigation and more.
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IDLA strives to meet the needs of the majority of districts throughout the state and adjusts class dates accordingly. During the school year, classes are offered in 12 week formats to better accommodate schools on a trimester schedule, while 16 week courses are offered with early and late start dates to better accommodate semester schedules. Regardless of your schedule, students are able to enroll in whatever format will be best for them. For students who wish to remove themselves from set start and end dates, IDLA offers courses in a flexible format. For a printable version of the current or upcoming Academic Calendar, check the Resources tab under Site Coordinators on our website.
Below is an overview of the course options offered by IDLA. The summary of different course format options will help your students decide which one will be the best fit for them.
Cohort classes are those with set start and end dates of class. Students progress through the course material as a cohort and interact with one another during this time. Course units are made available at pre-determined dates throughout the class and are offered in 12 week and 16 week formats, during the school year, with 10 week classes offered during the summer. These courses, however, all contain one semester credit of material so shortened classes will require a higher time commitment from students to complete. In addition, IDLA offers 6 week course sections, for drivers education only, at various times throughout the year.
Flex courses are those with a continuous open enrollment throughout the year. In these courses, students are provided approximately 3 months to complete a course, depending upon when the student enrolls. Course units are all available to students during this time, with removal of the student-to-student interaction seen in cohort classes. In this format, students are able to progress through the course at their own pace, regardless of a calendar.
IDLA is able to utilize live (synchronous) instruction within courses, through a hybrid model. In this case, IDLA can provide an individual course to schools and provide 1 or 2 days of live instruction per week delivered via a synchronous instruction tool.
In addition to our two main course formats, IDLA is able to customize classes for individual schools by offering custom sessions of classes. In such cases, IDLA is able to fill a possible staffing shortage in a particular content area and develop, and offer, a specific course to a specific school according to their calendar, and provide local access to this class to assist with student success.
IDLA also offers professional development opportunities for school staff throughout the state and continues to develop pilot courses to better meet the needs of districts. For a complete list of what is available to you, please visit our Professional Development area of our homepage, or visit our Professional Development Portal to register for events and courses.
When enrolling students, you will be asked to identify whether a student has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), Section 504 plan or ELP plan as well as contact information of the individual responsible for overseeing that student's plan. IDLA's registration system will email a request to this individual to forward the student's plan to IDLA. Within one week of the beginning of class, the Site Coordinator/District Representative is responsible for emailing (SpecialEducation@idla.k12.id.us) or faxing (1-866-534-2220) the student's entire IEP/504/ELP to Idaho Digital Learning. Upon receipt of the individual plan, the Idaho Digital Learning instructor will provide accommodations applicable to the online environment, according to the student's plan. Any additional resources of the IEP/504/LEP plan are the responsibility of the home district.
Requests for IEP/504/ELP plans will be sent each time a student is enrolled to ensure IDLA has up-to-date information on students' needs to evaluate accommodations/modifications appropriately.
Below are IDLA's course listings; requirements for various courses are listed in the course catalog. Course descriptions and other relevant information (course syllabi, prerequisites, required textbooks, etc.) can be found within IDLA's course catalog. Additionally, our website will provide you access to view information on Advanced Placement & Dual Credit classes, tech prep, as well as Driver's Ed and information regarding NCAA requirements for online courses.
Visit the Idaho Digital Learning Courses webpage below.
Click on the button to visit the IDLA Course Catalog.
You have a regional coordinator who can provide you with any number of course flyers you need but for those instances when you wish to electronically view our course offerings, these can be found on our Site Coordinator Resources webpage. Click on the button below to visit our course flyers page on our website.
The IDLA Student Information System also know as TheSIS, is your main tool for managing your students taking IDLA courses. Click the button below to see an overview presentation on the IDLA TheSIS.
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In addition to personalized help for any of your questions, IDLA has a "Support" link at the top of our homepage which will take you to our Knowledge Base. This page is an excellent resource to bookmark as it contains a number of answers to frequently asked questions to help you get started.
https://sites.google.com/a/idla.k12.id.us/knowledge-base/home
If you or your students find yourself in need of technical assistance, please do not hesitate to contact IDLA's Support Desk. Whether this relates to settings on a computer that aren't allowing students to access content or general assistance navigating material, our Tech Support is ready to help with any question you have.
https://www.idahodigitallearning.org/support/
As you wrap up this quick start module please reach out to our Regional Coordinator staff - call or email your IDLA Regional Coordinator and let us know if you have any questions. You can find your IDLA Regional Coordinator on the Regional Coordinator Map. If you do not know which region your school falls within just call our main number at IDLA (208-342-0207) and we can provide you with that information.
