The Southwest Virginia Education and Training Network (SVETN) is a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit corporation governed by educators. The SVETN was established in response to a need to increase curriculum offerings in small rural schools throughout southwestern Virginia. Organized originally for the purpose of facilitating instruction by interactive video, within the past decade other distance learning modes have emerged. The SVETN is headquartered in Abingdon at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center and is staffed by two full-time and one part-time employee.
In 2004, SVETN launched Elite Learning, a program of asynchronous online courses in its eighteenth year serving the students of southwestern Virginia. Elite is an acronym for Experience Learning Innovation and Teaching Excellence. SVETN serves the educational needs of learners in Bland, Buchanan, Carroll, Dickenson, Grayson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Smyth, Tazewell, Washington, Wise, Wythe, and the cities of Norton, Bristol, and Galax.
Students receive high school credit for their coursework. Elite Learning provides SVETN member high schools with a selection of courses taught by local instructors who use an Internet-based Learning Management System (LMS), called Canvas. Canvas supports a combination of rigorous collaborative and self-paced activities conducted at the learner’s computer.
Classes are asynchronous. That is, students may proceed at their own speed, on their own time within a flexible calendar framework. Thus, the scheduling of in-school work time also is conveniently flexible. Any school schedule can be accommodated since Elite Learning classes are offered in both semester and yearlong formats.