Last summer my boys and I put a couple of very small sunfish in an aquarium. Over the course of the year one of the fish has grown to 5 times the size and the other probably doubled. The difference was caused because the bigger fish would literally care more about preventing the smaller one from eating than it did about eating itself. We bought a screen to separate them in the tank. The smaller fish has put on quite a bit of size since then.
This seems to me what happens in a school. The more gregarious kids flourish. The smaller kids who aren’t the most popular get picked on.
We chose cyber school for our two older boys this year. My oldest isn’t super social and he loves it. His younger brother loves the social aspect of school and he can’t wait to go back.
One thing we heard frequently when people found out we were doing cyber school is that the “kids need socialization”. Well of course they do, but they don’t all need it in the artificial construct of a school setting.
As for next year my youngest will be in kindergarten, and we are sending him to regular school. My middle son can’t wait so he’s going to real school. My oldest is going back to school because he’s been too much of a pain about doing his work. But he has kind of flourished managing his own time. It makes me sad that he won’t have that next year, but not sad enough to deal with his obstinate behavior about doing his work.
The point of all of this is that Cyber school is a good option for some kids, it will allow them to grow.