Sep. 3—ROCHESTER — Every morning, the three Borslien siblings gather for breakfast before heading off to their bedrooms to start their day of online classes in elementary school.
Ten minutes before they have to log on, their Amazon Alexa sounds an alarm, letting them know it's almost time. And from there, they delve into the world of online learning.
Like many families, the Borsliens got their first taste of virtual education with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the final months of the 2019-20 school year. Although it may have started with forces outside their control, they've come to realize it's the method that works best for them.
The former Rochester family now lives in Fertile — a small town of not even 1,000 people in northwest Minnesota, six hours from Rochester — but Preston, Autumn and Jameson are still students of Rochester Public Schools. They aren't the only ones to take advantage of that option. With online schooling now in its fourth year of existence, more than a quarter of the students attending Rochester's online classrooms come from outside the district itself.
Overall, there are 414 students enrolled in MNSync online. Of those, 70 are in kindergarten through sixth grade, and 344 are in seventh through 12th grade.
Of the total, 107 live outside the boundaries of Rochester Public Schools. Even though they may never physically step foot in Rochester, the state funding tied to those students comes to the school district, creating a financial incentive for the district to enroll as many students as possible.
"I think that's definitely our goal," MNSync Online Principal Brandon Macrafic said. "That brings in additional revenue for the district."
Last year, RPS' virtual school changed its name to MNSync Online, partly to broaden the appeal of the school to those from throughout the state rather than those exclusively in the district's backyard.
Many of the students are clustered in and around Rochester. But there are also students from the Twin Cities, Mankato, Winona, Moorhead and, of course, Fertile.
MNSync Online isn't the only virtual school available in Minnesota. So, why would a student in Moorhead, or anywhere else, choose to attend Rochester?
For the Borsliens, the transition from a brick-and-mortar school to one of pixels wasn't the most direct journey. For the first half of 2020-21, the family tried Minnesota Connections Academy, another online school. Midway through that year, they learned that Rochester was creating its own online school, and they made the jump.
As it turned out, for them it was the better of the two options. Whereas Connections Academy required more supervision and input from Tanya and James over their children's education, Rochester's school, which at the time was called RPS Online, took more responsibility for the actual teaching process.
That option of having their children at home, while still connected to a larger school community, was the winning mix.
"For me, it was so much nicer to be able to see what they're learning and what they're doing in school, but yet standing back and letting them have that freedom to be who they are with their teachers," Tanya said. "I think it's the best of both worlds, honestly. I think we get more control, and they also get that great school experience."
Nonetheless, at the outset the family wasn't planning on staying with that option. The next year, in 2022-23, the family returned to a traditional school setting.
But even though traditional schooling is where their children started, the Borsliens started having second thoughts about whether it was where they wanted to stay.
For one thing, Tanya and James had to worry about their children being influenced by negative behavior of other students, or at least more so than they are in a virtual setting. They had other reservations too, such as the fact that today's schools exist in an era where they have to have tight security and buzzer systems and lockdowns.
"We never have to worry about that anymore," James said.
Now, all three of their children are online once again, this year in grades 2, 3 and 5.
RPS has marketed itself as being a synchronous-first virtual environment, Macrafic said. In other words, students attend live classes rather than just watching recorded lessons. He described it as filling a niche in the online school ecosystem.
The online school is still working to find the best way to advertise itself to students who live outside the immediate proximity of Rochester. But, that hasn't stopped it from having at least some initial success reaching a broader student base.
MNSync Online's teaching staff has been compiled from an even larger geographic range. Like the students themselves, staff are based around the state: St. Paul, Fergus Falls, Lanesboro and more.
Unlike the students, there also are staff members working from outside the state's borders, in Georgia, Oregon, and Texas.
Even though Rochester Public Schools is able to draw teachers from outside Minnesota itself, it doesn't necessarily mean the district has access to a much larger pool of candidates. For one thing, they still have to be licensed by the state to teach.
In addition, not every teacher is willing, or suited, to teach online.
"They also have to be able to make an online classroom engaging and meaningful as well," Macrafic said, "which is not an easy task."
Though it may not be easy, the online school has found a level of success. That's one thing that the Borsliens have come to appreciate about the district's online community.
After all, their daughter, Autumn, learned to crochet in one of her online classes. The skill wasn't related to any of the curriculum in the class, but her teacher found out that Autumn was trying to learn how to sew. From there, they began talking about crocheting.
"We thoroughly enjoyed everything about it," Tanya said about Rochester's virtual school. "They seemed to find what each child needed and challenged them where they needed to be challenged."
