I’Yona Young wanted to quit school.

The freshman at Towson High School, exhausted from walking a mile to school early in the morning, lost her enthusiasm for learning and struggled to focus. Her mom pulled her out of Baltimore County Public Schools and homeschooled her the rest of that year and the next.

They never considered going back until the school system offered a new option: a revamped online learning program that’s gaining popularity with homeschool families like theirs.

Baltimore County’s online option allows 600 students to learn at home with real-time instruction from teachers who use the same curriculum given to in-person students. It’s helping the district rebuild enrollment — and recover money attached to it — after losing students for the past five years.

Public schools across the state saw a steep decline in enrollment last year, with Baltimore County alone losing more than 2,000 students. The number of families statewide who homeschool, on the other hand, has exploded since the pandemic as better online and in-person resources became available. Researchers say many families have left public schools to better meet their children’s special needs, keep them safe from potential school shootings or bullying, or ensure that what they learn follows their belief system.

The trend worried district and state officials, since state funding is tied to how many kids are enrolled. So Baltimore County leaders brainstormed a plan: Find a way for the kids who learn best from home to stay there.

That fall, the district sent a survey to over 500 families who left the school system to learn at home, asking if they’d return through a new online program.

Turns out, there was “really significant interest,” said Douglas Elmendorf, the district’s executive director of academic programs.

Baltimore County already had an online program for students who are hospitalized or faced certain discipline. It was also the primary learning medium when the pandemic forced everyone to learn from home. Previously, instruction was largely asynchronous, which meant students often learned independently, without a teacher walking them through lessons.

The new and improved online learning program launched last school year for fifth through 12th graders selected via a lottery system. It was scaled down from 1,000 students to 600, eliminated most elementary grades and switched to a synchronous format. The $3.4 million program now has 35 full-time teachers and staff. In most grades, students are on a waiting list to get in.

Young’s mom, Sharmeka Johnson, entered her daughter in the lottery last year after she got an email asking her to come back to BCPS.

Johnson said she enjoyed homeschooling since it meant more time with her kids (her two younger children learn at home), but teaching a high schooler proved more complex, she said. Finding activities and materials wasn’t easy and “pretty pricey.”

Switching to the school system’s program this year saved money and gave Johnson some of her time back. She still helps her daughter when needed but is more like Young’s “teacher’s assistant” than her full-time instructor.

Young, now a junior, has time to eat breakfast and logs on around 8 a.m., instead of hustling to Towson High by 7:45. She has an A/B schedule and takes four classes a day, including honors history, literature and one of her favorites, computer science, where she’s learning to make animations.

Johnson said Young’s teachers communicate with parents well and encourage students to talk to one another. She hears Young giggling with her classmates from time to time and said she’s made a new friend. The program has already made a difference academically for Young, who’s made the honor roll twice since enrolling.

“I feel upbeat about it, and I feel like I can focus,” she said.

Of course, not everyone sees the school system’s program as a good fit.

“There were families who were like, ‘I don’t care if you gave me all the money in the world. I’m not coming back,’” said Elmendorf, the academic programs director.

Miriam Snare of Nottingham received emails about the county schools online program but wasn’t interested.

“What they’re offering is not what homeschoolers want,” she said.

The former Baltimore County Public Schools teacher said homeschoolers are not plopped down in front of a screen all day. They have activities or a flexible job.

Her son attended the public schools between kindergarten and fourth grade. She expected her 10-year-old at the time to know the basics, but he “thought that World War I and the Revolutionary War were the same thing,” Snare said.

“I just got more disillusioned with what the educational system can do,” she said.

She homeschooled him for the rest of grade school. Now he’s thriving as a college junior while Snare homeschools her sixth grader, she said.

But Elmendorf said the school system’s program is attractive to families for different reasons. Some students, for instance, use the online program as a way to transition into the school system. A homeschooled seventh grader who wants to play high school sports could use the online program to learn what public school is like.

The program is run by “highly skilled” staff who are trained to teach virtually, said Elmendorf. Educators abide by the National Standards for Quality Online Learning, which are guidelines for how online learning should look, he said.

A 2022 National Institutes of Health study found that lack of direct contact with a teacher, too much screen time and a dependency on efficient resources could be barriers to effective online learning. However, participants said the advantages of learning online outweighed the disadvantages.

Telisa Goffington, the district’s coordinator of the online program, said the virtual students “have access to all the same curricula that our students in a brick-and-mortar building do.” Teachers must adapt the content for the online format. A worksheet, for example, wouldn’t simply be copied and pasted and sent to the student, she explained. Teachers would create a virtual version that allows students to write directly on the page.

“Whatever district expectations are rolled out, we do our best to make sure that we can mirror it in this program,” she said.

Teachers are still expected to create relationships with their students, and students can interact through a chat system.

Each online student is co-enrolled with the physical school they are zoned for. That means they can participate in after-school activities like sports, though just a handful do, according to Goffington. They can even attend field trips, though it’s not encouraged since it interferes with class times.

And just like any other Baltimore County student, they can walk across a real stage at graduation.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.