SAN ANTONIO – The Northside Independent School District (NISD) is trying something new this school year: a virtual academy for students.
Carrie Squyres, director of academic technology for NISD, said 215 high school students from different campuses will power on the program on Monday, the first day of the 2026-27 school year.
“We are taking a very conservative approach this first year, so we limited our enrollment to grades nine through 11,” Squyres said.
To meet the district’s target launch date, she said NISD is operating its virtual academy as a program, which means virtual students will still be enrolled at their home campus for this academic year, and Graduation Alliance, a third-party vendor, will run the academy this first year.
“They’re providing the curriculum, they’re providing the teaching staff,” Squyres said. ”They have hired an executive director, a dedicated counselor and two academic coaches that will support the students through this next year.”
Graduation Alliance is an organization that partners with educators, government outlets and school districts to provide online education models and essentials, according to its website.
After vetting multiple vendors, Squyres said the district chose to move forward with a virtual learning plan with them.
For more than half a year, she and an interdepartmental team worked with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to meet requirements and deadlines.
The agency signed off on the academy, but Squyres said TEA officials made it clear that despite using a third-party vendor, the district is responsible for virtual students’ success.
“We’re essentially setting up systems right now, where we work with the executive director and some key staff at Graduation Alliance to meet regularly, to share data, to monitor student progress, to make plans for intervention and advancement as necessary,” Squyres said.
Enrollment for NISD’s virtual academy was capped at 215 for its inaugural year, so enrollment is closed.
Squyres said it closed early to set deadlines for course schedules and to give Graduation Alliance a working student head count of how much staff their team needed to hire in a timely window. She also explained the process of how students were selected.
“Our registration is done online. So parents registered as if they were registering for their campus anyway, and there was a box to check that read, ‘I want to do virtual academy’,” she said.
Forms where the box was checked were noted, and Squyres said the district began contacting those families.
Squyres said a counselor was brought in to help staff review transcripts, have discussions with families and draft course plans.
Virtual students will be following the district’s academic calendar and grade reporting deadlines, are required to make daily attendance checks, and must be scheduled for 240 minutes of instruction per day.
“Graduation Alliance is helping us ... (track ) student engagement in their learning management system on that side,” she said. ”We are tracking the attendance that they attend on site for a course.”
Squyres assured that students and parents are getting the same type of documentation as in-person students and families.
Students in the virtual academy are not required to go to a campus except for state-mandated testing.
Since the students are still enrolled within the district, they will still be issued an ID badge that will have virtual academy on it, and they can take part in and attend extracurricular activities.
“It will get them onto their home campus and into other district facilities,” Squyres said.
Next year, she said officials are still working with TEA to eventually complete its partnership with Graduation Alliance and establish its own district-standalone virtual academy.
In addition, they are also working toward expanding the virtual academy to include seniors and recruit students outside of NISD boundaries, including those attending another online school, a charter school or using a homeschool option.
Squyres said the district is excited about this new opportunity to offer a new flexible environment for students with commitments that can affect the amount of time they are actually in the classroom.
“A student can work during the day or can help take care of a family member or travel across Texas with an athletic team and then still log in from anywhere to complete their work. Yeah, it’s exciting,” Squyres said.
District officials are hoping the virtual learning option will allow the district to grow the academy, remain competitive and help retain current students.
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