In Home Alone, Kevin McCallister spent an entire movie defending his house from burglars with paint cans and a BB gun when the front door was never even locked. Iconic commitment, but holy moly is that terrible planning.
Unfortunately, some districts that have been meaning to launch a virtual school program for the last three years have that same energy.
Every semester, the same three barriers come up: budget, staffing and technology. Every semester, the program stays on the "someday" list.
Meanwhile, students who want a virtual option have already found one and taken their per-pupil funding somewhere else.
Dylan Hoffman, Subject's very own VP of Operations and Customer Success, has seen this play out enough times to know what's actually going on.
"Districts often feel the barrier to start is really high," he says. "When in reality, that's often not the case."
He shows us how easy launching a virtual school is below.
Here’s what’s on the dashboard this week:
Today’s Deep Dive: Just a few steps to launching a virtual school
Reading Rainbow: Kids need recess, schools need a map
From Our Desk: A very sporty week
Watch of the Week: Woody v. Tablet. Who wins?
The surprisingly simple steps to finally launching a virtual school
Dylan Hoffman has sat through enough of these “virtual school launch” committee meetings to recognize the exact moment a district realizes it's been planning around the wrong questions.
He’s guided dozens of districts through a four-step discovery process that compresses years of planning into a single academic year. And get this… he does this without any new hires required upfront or even technology purchases before the district knows what it actually needs.
Dylan says it’s all done with just four questions, asked in the right order.
Step 1: Know Your Legal Limits
Before anyone books a planning meeting, someone needs a clear picture of what's actually permitted in the district's state and region.
Virtual school rules vary dramatically by state and often between neighboring districts in the same county
Requirements cover everything from seat time minimums to which program types are legally allowed at all
"What are the strictures in place? What policies do we have to work around? What can and can't we do?" Dylan asks
Pro tip: Pull your state's virtual education statutes and put together a one-pager on what programs are allowed, what requires separate authorization and where county-level rules might differ. A 30-minute call with your state education department will get you further than an afternoon of document review.
Step 2: Get Honest About What You Actually Have
With the legal picture clear, the conversation shifts to the district's real situation (aka not the one it wishes it had).
This means an honest look at budget flexibility, where staffing is stretched and which students are already looking for something the district doesn't currently offer
The enrollment data tends to surprise people: students are often already leaving for outside virtual programs
When a student transfers out, their per-pupil state funding goes with them — making a delayed launch a financial liability and a missed opportunity
Pro tip: Pull enrollment data from the last two to three years and flag any student groups that have declined year-over-year. Cross-reference that against transfer requests citing schedule flexibility or outside program enrollment. That data tells you who your virtual program needs to serve before you've written a single word of a proposal.
The last two steps are in the playbook. They're the good ones.
Teachers Just Lived Another One: Edutopia gathered its educator community for a year-end lookback on 2025-26: what clicked, what didn't and what teachers would want central office to actually hear. Read it before everyone disappears for summer and collectively agrees not to talk about it until September.
The American Academy of Pediatrics Would Like a Word: The AAP just updated its recess recommendations for the first time in 13 years, calling for at least 20 minutes of daily recess. EdWeek spoke with researchers about what students actually lose when that time gets carved away for test prep — and it turns out decades of child development research and "kids need to go outside sometimes" were pointing at the exact same conclusion.
Find Out If Your School Is Beating the Odds: The 74 built an interactive map using data from over 40,000 schools to identify the ones outperforming what their local poverty rates would predict for third-grade reading scores. Worth pulling up for your own district. The "we made the list" conversation and the "we didn't make the list" conversation are both worth having.
The Fifth-Grade Classroom That Started Running Itself: A teacher told her fifth-graders they were old enough to take charge of their own learning… and got a response she didn't see coming. TeachMag has the full story, and it makes a stronger case for student-led learning than any policy brief you've read this year (admittedly a low bar, but still).
Subject 🤝 A little friendly competition. Here’s how we recruit the Subject way.
We found a boss-approved way to talk about our favorite summer sport while on the clock. You’re welcome.
Bridging the gap between small school limitations and big school opportunities? All in a day’s work. Read about our partnership with Tom Bean ISD here.
Let’s hang out! If you’re planning to attend any of the following conferences, reach out to [email protected] and let’s connect:
July 12 - 15: GAEL Summer Conference
July 14 - 15: TX ESC 16 Connect Conference
July 14 - 16: NMCEL 2026 Summer Conference
July 19 - 21: MAEN State Conference
Our pick of the week: Toy Story 5
Why We’re Obsessed: Toy Story 5 is the movie where Woody and Buzz go up against a frog-shaped tablet named Lilypad (remember her?!) who has strong opinions about what Bonnie should be doing with her time, and Pixar somehow made that emotionally devastating. If you've ever watched a kid choose a glowing screen over literally anything you prepared for them (who hasn’t?!), this one will feel distressingly personal.
Recommended lesson integration:
Persuasive writing: Have students write a letter from either Woody's or Lilypad's perspective arguing why they deserve to be Bonnie's favorite. Turns out "defend your position against a tablet" produces stronger thesis statements than any worksheet you've handed out this year (and the kids will actually finish the assignment).
Digital literacy and screen time: Use Lilypad's grip on Bonnie's attention as a starting point to discuss how apps and devices are designed to keep users engaged. Students will recognize themselves in Bonnie almost immediately, which is uncomfortable for everyone in the room and exactly the right way to kick off the conversation.
Emotional intelligence, change and letting go: Jessie has to figure out how to make room for Lilypad in Bonnie's life without losing who she is in the process. That is a massive feeling for a five-year-old to understand, and a cartoon cowgirl explains it better than most adults would in a classroom debrief. Let Jessie do the heavy lifting here. You’ll thank us later.
Value and worth: What makes something valuable? Woody has years of history. Lilypad was just unboxed. Walk students through sentimental value, functional value and market value, then ask them to assign a dollar amount to both. There will be arguments. Woody fans will get philosophical. And guess what? That is entirely the point.
Media literacy: The Toy Story 5 teaser trailer pulled 142 million views in 24 hours. Taylor Swift wrote an original song for it. Use the film's rollout as a case study in how franchises build cultural momentum, why certain things go viral and who benefits when they do. Bonus: it's the one media literacy unit where students will have actually done the required reading.
Daily news for curious minds.
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Thank you for joining us for another edition of On The Subject. We’ll see you again in a week, with more stories from the hallways.
The Subject Team
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