LEXINGTON — At its Monday night meeting, the Davidson County Board of Education shifted its focus to look at not only students who have dropped out but also those enrolled in virtual courses.

With the number of W2 students — students who have currently dropped out of school but have the potential to come back — still down from last year, the Board considered statistics of students who have enrolled in online courses either to gain new credits or recover failed credits.

Ben Terrell, director of research and student development, said that although the numbers are constantly changing, Davidson County has consistently had one of the highest enrollments in virtual courses, with a total of 403 for the first semester.

“We’re brining the over-aged and under-credited student back towards an appropriate place in the scheme of things for graduating on time,” Terrell said. “I think our kids are doing very well.”

Currently 20 students from high schools across Davidson County are participating in the iSchool online courses offered through UNC-Greensboro. Learn and Earn courses, also college-level classes, have 18 students enrolled county-wide.

These programs, as well as the NCVPS program, have allowed high schools to expand their curriculum in ways not possible through face-to-face classes.

“Either this year or next year we will probably have at least one student, maybe more than one student, who will graduate from a traditional school with diploma in hand and AED in hand,” Terrell said. “That is only made possible through virtual online classes.”

While all of the NN courses and a few of the NCVPS courses are made up of students recovering credits, a majority of the NCVPS are students looking to gain new credit, such as AP classes.

“Because of NCVPS, we’re able to have one student or five students or seven students taking an AP course online,” Terrell said. “It’s awesome. It’s just downright awesome.”

The board also looked at the policy issue of domicile regarding school districts, focusing particularly on students whose parents are divorced or separated. Under the old policy, a child’s assigned school district depended on the county of residence of their custodial parent.

While that policy still applies, the question answered in the policy adjustment is what happens when parents have joint custody of the child.

“What this policy really addresses in greater detail than we have in the past is addressing situations of students that may have divorced or separated parents,” Board Attorney Bradley Hunt said. “It defines how the custody order may define domicile.”

In the case of parents with joint custody, domicile would mean the home where the child spends most of his or her time, Hunt said.

In other news, the Board also:

Approved consent of policy revisions and budget amendments

Discussed the revision of the policy regarding community use of facilities

Approved the appointment of Paula Justice and Stephanie Hall as interim assistant principals at Ledford Middle School

Approved the appointment of Gary Buie as the permanent Transportation Director

Discussed growth trends for Wallburg Elementary

Discussed participation trends for school cafeterias

Discussed the use of Quality School Construction Bonds for the building of three roofs

Changed the time of its April meeting to March 31 at 4 p.m.