In this episode of The Inside Scoop, David Owen interviews Dave Church, Assistant Principal at the Cobb Online Learning Academy (COLA). COLA is the District's full-time, online-only school available to middle school and high school students.

COLA differs from Cobb's Virtual Academy (CVA) in that it is primarily synchronous, while CVA is mainly asynchronous. Synchronous learning means that students and teachers are online meeting and learning live on a particular day and time, while asynchronous classes can be accessed at any time. Synchronous allows students and teachers to interact remotely in real-time, just as they would in a face-to-face classroom.

COLA currently has over 60 teachers, with about 800 students across grades 6 through 12. Flexibility is key to COLA and allows students to get a high-quality Cobb education without needing to be physically present in the county. While reasons vary, many students are involved in sports or fine arts programs that require travel and COLA fits the need perfectly.

Click here to listen to this episode and learn much more about COLA.