Explainer: Hallsville ISD virtual academy gives students opportunity for alternative learning

Published 5:45 am Monday, February 9, 2026

Since 2018, Hallsville ISD student enrollment has skyrocketed, and one of the reasons for that growth is the district’s Texas Virtual Academy at Hallsville.

“Not every kid fits in the same box,” academy Executive Director Kyla Pickrell said. “There’s so many different ways to learn, and there’s not just one. And so, Hallsville was innovative enough to say we want to not just reach our brick-and-mortar kids, but we want to make sure that all learners that want to choose another way can choose to learn the way that they want to learn.”

Why TVAH?

Pickrell has worked with the parent company for the virtual school for the past 12 years. When the Hallsville academy opened in 2018, she began as a teacher and over the years has moved up to assistant principal to principal and now to her current role.

“I was here when there were just a few kids, and now we’re at almost 25,000 (students),” she said.

The district originally opened a virtual high school in 2014 but decided to close it in 2016. When Hallsville ISD wanted to expand its virtual efforts again in 2018, it did so through a partnership with K12, which is an online learning system the district uses to run the virtual academy.

“(K12 has) the program, the online school that the kids work in, and then we have all the teachers, we train the teachers, we support the teachers,” Pickrell said. “It’s our leadership team that does the daily piece of managing the platforms, the teachers, the instruction and those pieces.”

TVAH opened the door to students who learn better in an online setting. Some students may have anxiety or medical needs that prevent them from succeeding in traditional schools, Pickrell said.

“We have a lot of kids that are struggling with mental health issues or physical health issues. We’ve got kids with cancer – they need something that allows them to learn from their bed, or they need something that allows for frequent doctor’s appointments, or maybe they need to learn at grandma’s house or different things like that,” she said. “(Online learning) is something that just gives that flexibility.”

To enroll in the academy, a student must live in Texas and have attended a Texas public school the previous academic year.

The academy is for grades three through 12 and is considered a public school.

The curriculum at the virtual academy mirrors that of the other schools, and its students also take the STAAR test.

Daily attendance factors into the school’s state funding.

“(Superintendent John Martin) says that it’s been a great way to be responsible for our taxpayers. We’ve been able to not increase taxes through (funding received through the virtual academy),” Pickrell said. “We’ve been able to buy more buses for the school district. We’ve been able to do improvements on the building and things like that. So, being in this partnership has allowed for more resources for the school district.”

The biggest difference between the virtual academy and traditional learning is when students complete work as the academy allows them to work throughout the day.

“All of our teachers are certified Texas teachers. We just have the ability to have a combination of live instruction and asynchronous work,” Pickrell said. “So, the kiddos are going to be some of the day in a class and some of the days working through their coursework in their online school. And so that gives a little bit more flexibility. It’s open 24 hours a day.”

The school also has counselors available for students.

Pickrell said the academy’s goal is to give students the resources they need to graduate.

“As we’ve grown, we’ve been able to put in more support systems to fill those gaps to give them the emotional support, to give all the different support that we need so that they can walk across that (graduation) stage,” she said.

One of the most recent additions is a partnership with Kilgore College to offer associate’s degrees to students who have been enrolled at the academy throughout their whole high school career.

“We can make a plan if that’s what you want and you can graduate with your associate’s degree,” Pickrell said. “We partnered with Kilgore (College), and we’ve been able to get it to where you can get all of that. So, you can get one credit for college or you can get that whole associate’s degree.”

Finding community

Although the academy is online, students still have opportunities for in-person connections.

Pickrell said staff members coordinate outings across the state.

“Let’s say it’s a zoo outing, then we’re going to pick zoo sites all over the state. We’re going to partner up with our families. We’re going to give them all the information. We’re going to have a place set that we’re all going to meet and we’re going to meet up,” she said. “We’re going to have some little engagement activities so that we can get them to know each other and get used to talking to each other and then we’ll go into the zoo and we’ll hang out with each other and make a whole day of it to where we can hang out and really enjoy time getting to know each other.”

Students also can experience prom and graduation just like students at other schools.

“It was really cool last year with all the girls showing up with their pretty prom dresses, and we had the DJ and the dance floor,” Pickrell said. “So, they get those memories just like they would in brick-and-mortar. It’s just slightly tweaked, but you still get to make those lasting memories.”

The academy holds in-person and virtual graduation ceremonies. Because students can live anywhere in the state, the graduation ceremony takes place in the Dallas-Forth Worth area. But students wear the same Hallsville purple and are handed a diploma from Hallsville ISD’s superintendent.

Pickrell said she understands the students served by the academy and the mission of an alternative learning method. At 16, she faced the option of obtaining her GED or staying in school until she was 22 because of health reasons.

“That was a very tough decision as a teenager because something like this didn’t exist. I got my GED at 16 and went straight to college,” she said. “I wanted that diploma from my local school so bad, and I felt like a failure at first for not being able to get that. And so, when I heard about this and understood kind of the mission of what we could do here, it was very personal to me because I wanted to make sure that all kids that want to get their traditional high school diploma had a way to do it.”

She said she focuses on building up her staff and giving students the same opportunities as traditional learners.

“I think that I have grown as a leader and as a supporter of all students through this process of just hearing these students, seeing the faces and understanding what it means to support somebody to get them to the end,” Pickrell said.

For more information about the academy, visit tvah.k12.com.