Fort Smith Virtual Academy is an alternative public charter virtual school serving grades K-12 in the Fort Smith School District in Arkansas, with 79 students and a student-teacher ratio of 8.7. The school has a high percentage of free and reduced-price lunch recipients at 79.75% in the 2022-2023 school year.
While the Fort Smith Virtual Academy offers an alternative educational option, the school significantly underperforms the Fort Smith School District and the state of Arkansas in most academic subjects and grade levels. For example, in 2023-2024, only 10.6% of 10th-grade students were proficient or better in English Language Arts, compared to 30% for the district and 31.7% for the state. The school also struggles in mathematics, with only 16.4% of all students proficient or better, compared to 32.3% for the district and 36.4% for the state. Additionally, the school has a 0% proficiency rate in Geometry across all grade levels, which is significantly lower than the district (14.9%) and state (18%) averages.
Interestingly, the nearby River Valley Virtual Academy, located in the Van Buren School District, outperforms Fort Smith Virtual Academy in most academic subjects and grade levels. The significant underperformance of Fort Smith Virtual Academy compared to the district and state averages may raise concerns about the effectiveness of the district's virtual education program and the support provided to students in this alternative setting, and the school could benefit from a closer examination of its curriculum, instructional practices, and support services to identify areas for improvement and better serve its student population.
In the 2022-23 school year, 79 students attended Fort Smith Virtual Academy.
Fort Smith School District
Students at Fort Smith Virtual Academy are 43% White, 24% Two or more races, 15% Hispanic, 11% African American, 5% Asian, 1% American Indian.
Fort Smith Virtual Academy ranks in the bottom 15.7% of Arkansas alternative schools.