STEUBENVILLE — The Jefferson County Educational Service Center’s Virtual Learning Academy has proved itself a ready resource for school districts during difficult conditions, including the recent heavy snowfall and hazardous cold.

While the winter weather caused widespread school closures over multiple days, VLA Director Mark Masloski said the VLA staff was positioned to meet educators’ needs.

“Us being an online platform, it being 24/7, that we are prepared for situations when there are snow issues,” he said.

“Just because we have tons of snow, VLA doesn’t stop. So, we are working either in the building or at home, making sure that our schools are getting the services and the help that they need. So, nothing slowed down at VLA. We might not have been in our offices, we might have been home checking our emails and making sure that everything runs smoothly.”

This was only one example of VLA’s record of providing extensive assistance during extreme circumstances.

“The way we work and our best practices makes us more sustainable when the outside world has to stop. We saw that through COVID as well. We were automatically prepared and had things in place for that.”

Masloski added that feedback was positive, but optimally, clients do not notice any change at all and are able to continue the mission of education even when they are unable to get to their school buildings.

“Our practices and procedures were the same with 12 inches of snow or with zero inches of snow.”

VLA Assistant Director Martariesa Logue commended the VLA staff, who did not miss a step during the worst of the weather.

“Our staff was wonderful. They were able to log in every day at the same time. We were still able to have our daily meetings to check in and be able to do everything that we needed to,” she said, adding VLA continued to provide services with the expected level of convenience.

“The curriculum is providing lessons already made, so their teachers didn’t have to worry about going in and trying to grab material and put a lesson together or research on Google. They were able still to use the content that was available, because that’s how VLA is set up, that students have access to all of the units at once. The teachers can supplement, but they don’t have to because it’s already there.”

Logue added VLA prides itself on fast responsiveness. Even though volume of messages was up, staffers were ready to answer their questions.

“We did see some increase of usage because students were at home and they weren’t able to communicate with people as much if they were in school, so we saw our messaging system increase,” she said. “Students can message with their teachers and their point of contacts.”

They also took the opportunity to introduce clients to more VLA services.

“We were able to talk to some people we typically wouldn’t talk to,” she said. “A lot of times we’re only talking to online schools, but now we’re talking to brick-and-mortar schools because they didn’t have an online option in place. They weren’t ready to be out of school for a whole week, and their students had nothing to work on because they just didn’t have that in place at the time.

“It was interesting to be able to talk to them and tell them yes, our curriculum is available and your teachers don’t have to do anything except grade the work that was submitted.”

Logue said another of VLA’s advantages is flexibility.

“The most common question was: ‘When can the student log in?’ And for us, it’s any time. If the student wants to log in at 2 a.m. and submit work, they’re more than welcome to. Teachers, the same thing. They can log in whenever they need to or want to.”

Educators are also impressed by the variety.

“We have more than 300 courses available. We did see an uptick in schools using our social and emotional courses to help students with their mental health during the cold.”

She added the winter closures also afforded some lighthearted moments and fun activities.

“We also had teachers sending out messages from teachers asking: ‘How much snow did you receive? Send us a picture.’ So it was really cool to see all these different pictures of the snow throughout Ohio, and then we posted some of those pictures. It was nice to have that friendly competition. We had teachers sending that in. We had students, parents.”

Located in the R. Larry George Training Annex at 1913 Estelle Ave., Steubenville, the VLA serves all students, including those who are credit deficient, home bound or home schooled. JCESC VLA can serve as a stand-alone program or implemented within a district’s already existing curriculum.

To learn about the JCESC Virtual Learning Academy, visit the website at jcesc.k12.oh.us/vla.aspx; contact VLA staff at vla@jcesc.org; or call (740) 283.3347, extension 100.