A key lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is that, for some students, virtual learning is where they truly thrive. Founded in 2021, the DPSCD Virtual School was created to provide a needed alternative to the traditional brick-and-mortar learning environment that works for most students. The Virtual School offers full-time live classes with certified teachers on Microsoft Teams during the regular school day. While we are physically located on the west side of Detroit, our students come from all over the city. Our student body is comprised of a wide range of abilities, talents, and skill-levels. The Virtual School has developed a list of eligibility criteria to ensure all our our students are successful and in the right learning environment for their specific needs. We offer a menu of standard courses for our K-8 students as well as electives. Our 9-12 students are offered courses which count toward a high school diploma along with a growing list of courses based on interest, strengths, and choice. In our innaugural year we learned many lessons, one of the most important was that uniformity is essential to success. We have streamlined our operations, created a strategic plan, and set best practice standards for all of our teachers and staff. While the Virtual School was created out of the pandemic, we are here to stay. We will continue to be staffed with our own dedicated principal, teachers, and support staff, and will continue to issue grades and credits under our own school code.