Year in Review: 2023 at VHS Learning

As 2023 ends and we begin the new year, we have been looking back upon our best moments and accomplishments throughout the year. This year has rushed past as we’ve connected hundreds of students with online learning opportunities and watched them accomplish great things. Reflecting on 2023, VHS Learning has had many exciting moments developing new courses, building valuable partnerships, and providing high-quality online courses to students across the globe.

In March, VHS Learning was selected to receive a $25,000 grant to create a high-quality U.S. History curriculum and professional development supporting discussion-based primary source analysis online and in other learning settings. This initiative––funded by a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Eastern Region program––is designed to engage online learners in frequent primary source analysis experiences that increase their sense of connection and foster student collaboration.

Throughout the year, we added several new courses to our catalog, expanding our offerings to provide a wider range of learning opportunities for students. In April, we introduced 11 new courses for the 2023-24 school year. We added two additional Advanced Placement® (AP) courses, as well as courses in disciplines across business, computer science, and the arts. We also expanded our flexibly paced course catalog for the 2023-24 school year, adding five new AP® courses and more.

Over the summer, we partnered with ChinesePlus to host a professional development opportunity for Chinese language teachers. Through this partnership, we provided our four-week Online Teaching Methodologies (OTM) course to Chinese language teachers, which ChinesePlus supplemented with three webinars from internationally renowned Chinese teaching experts. This professional development course is just one way we’ve been working to promote the global development of online Chinese language courses for high school students––we also introduced our online Chinese Language and Culture course in 2023.

Our President and CEO Carol DeFuria was featured in several publications this year discussing the student engagement crisis in The Learning Counsel, how online learning can solve teacher shortages in District Administration, the value of online arts education in SmartBrief, and diversity in the online classroom in Equity & Access.

This fall, we welcomed three new members to our board of directors: Kelly Christian and Barbara Morse as board trustees and Brian Reagan as the ex-officio trustee from Hudson Public Schools. These new board members bring a wealth of education experience to the VHS Learning board, and will help us better serve our school partners and students around the world.

In November, we attended the seventh annual CSforALL Summit, where we announced our 2023 commitment to advancing equitable and sustainable K-12 computer science education. Through our commitment, VHS Learning, in partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, will provide AP® Computer Science Principles or AP® Computer Science A to 60 students in schools that do not offer either course. We are proud to stand alongside the 434 other CSforALL commitments from 119 organizations and 288 schools that were announced at the 2023 summit.

Throughout the year, the VHS Learning team had several articles featured in publications including THE Journal and eSchool News. We were also able to share some of our customers’ accomplishments through case studies we developed highlighting success stories at Massachusetts Mayflower Academy and Shekou International School.

Here at VHS Learning, we are grateful for everything we’ve been able to accomplish in 2023. We can’t wait to see what opportunities 2024 will bring, and we look forward to exploring new ideas, building new partnerships, and expanding our online offerings in the new year. On behalf of all of us at VHS Learning, happy new year!