Learning Coach Responsibilities
Georgia Cyber Academy students access their learning resources online. While school faculty and staff support student learning, there is still a need for support and guidance from an adult who is physically present with the student to supervise and monitor progress throughout the school day and year. Georgia Cyber Academy refers to this “at home” role as Learning Coach. Most frequently the Learning Coach is a parent, but it can also be a tutor or other designated adult responsible for the student’s day-to-day learning supervision. Parents are asked to identify the designated Learning Coach, who faculty/ staff will communicate with throughout the school year.
A student’s success in online education is directly related a Learning Coach’s involvement.
Primary duties of the Learning Coach are to:
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Read GCA emails at least once daily.
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Answer all communications within 24 hours
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Complete all paperwork and survey requests
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Keep the student’s information up to date
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Monitor their student’s assignment completion and grades daily
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Ensure that their student attends all required live classes
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Enter attendance when needed
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Monitor their student when taking assessments and tests to ensure that no ‘additional help’ is provided that might mask whether a student truly understands the concepts or not
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Reach out to appropriate teachers and staff members with questions, especially if the student is struggling or needs additional support.
Attendance:
Good attendance helps students do well in school. Excused and unexcused absences quickly add up to too much time lost in the classroom. Together, school staff and families can resolve the chronic absence issue and help our students close the achievement gap through the development of plans, communication, and other actions that lead to success.
Participation in Other Programs:
A student’s participation in an outside program of study, extra-curricular activity, and/or vacation does not exempt them from adhering to the Parent/Student Handbook class engagement guidelines, GCA's Attendance Policy, and/or the procedures and practices surrounding the Attendance Policy. Extra-curricular programs, activities, and/or vacations must be scheduled around GCA classes and its monitored testing periods unless a student has demonstrated sufficient proficiency/mastery in a subject/course to have earned the flexibility to work from recorded class sessions and/or to take tests around their extra-curricular activities.
The class engagement guidelines, Attendance Policy, and testing procedures/practices are designed to ensure that students gain the necessary skills to be successful in their current and future subjects/courses.
Monitoring:
A critical component for a student to be successful in a virtual educational setting is that they have proper adult supervision throughout the school day. A GCA teacher is not physically able to provide supervision in a virtual educational environment, therefore there must be a dedicated adult performing that supervisory role when a student is enrolled at GCA. That adult must:
- provide consistent academic oversight
- monitor the student’s academic performance daily
- ensure that the student attends all required classes
- hold the student accountable for completing assignments and tests on time
- maintain consistent communication with GCA staff and administrators
- maintain updated contact information with the school.
Whether a student is in kindergarten or high school, they still need consistent oversight and direction to be academically successful. We find that students without this consistent adult oversight struggle to grow academically and often fall further and further behind in their academic skills and knowledge.