Has Anyone Worked For California Virtual Academies? My 3 Years As A Homeroom Teacher
I was reaching for a bunch of kale at Trader Joe’s last month when a woman tapped my shoulder. It was Lisa, mom of Mia, one of my first 1st grade homeroom students at California Virtual Academies. She remembered I’d started tutoring locally after I left CAVA, and immediately pulled out her phone to show me a text from her sister. “She wants to apply for a teaching spot there, and my neighbor’s thinking of enrolling her 4th grader,” she said. “Everyone’s asking: has anyone actually worked for California Virtual Academies? What’s it really like?”
I got hired at CAVA in 2020, right after I finished my multiple subject teaching credential. All the in-person positions in my local Bay Area district were frozen that year, so I applied on a whim, never expecting to hear back. Six weeks later I was onboarded, and started the fall with 28 1st and 2nd graders in my homeroom, spread all the way from the Mexican border to the Oregon line.
Most mornings I set up my laptop at my kitchen table, poured a coffee that would go cold before I drank half of it, and pulled up our Zoom check-in by 8 AM. My tabby cat Mochi always jumped onto the desk right as we started, so the kids would all yell “MOCHI!” for the first two minutes of every day. I kept a box of granola bars next to my monitor because I rarely had time to make lunch between small group reading sessions and parent check-ins.
There were things I loved about the job that I never got in my student teaching placements. All school supplies, books, and curriculum materials were shipped directly to students for free, so I never had to ask parents for donations or buy supplies out of my own paycheck like my in-person teacher friends did. I got a stipend for internet and my home office, which covered most of my extra costs. I got to work with kids I never would have met in a neighborhood public school: one boy lived on a houseboat in Sausalito, another was a competitive gymnast who traveled 10 months a year and could do her work on the road between competitions. For kids who struggled with in-person bullying or anxiety, it was a safe reset that let them learn at their own pace.
But there were hard parts no job description prepared me for. The administrative load was far heavier than I expected. Every absence needed documentation entered into two separate systems, every progress check needed three different notes, every truancy referral required three pages of forms. I worked 10-hour days most weeks, even though my contract listed a 7.5-hour workday. One semester, a new administrator changed our mandatory after-school meeting schedule three times in two months, so I had to reschedule dozens of parent conferences that had been locked in for weeks. There were days I logged off with a headache just from clicking through endless menus in the school’s data system.
From what I’ve seen, there’s a lot of mixed chatter online about CAVA, but most of it doesn’t get specific for people actually considering working there or enrolling their kid. Now that people ask me for my take, I have concrete things I tell them, straight from three years in the classroom.
If you’re a teacher thinking of applying to CAVA, first ask point-blank in your final interview what your maximum caseload will be, and get it in writing. A friend of mine who taught special ed there was told she’d have a maximum of 22 IEPs, and by her third month she had 31. Second, build a 15-minute buffer into the end of every day just for data entry. If you log off as soon as your last class ends, that work piles up over the week and you’ll end up working half your Saturday to catch up. I did this buffer for two years and it cut my weekend work time by 70%. Third, if you need hard lines between work and home, this job probably isn’t for you. Your laptop is always on the kitchen table, emails pop up at 8 PM, and it’s almost impossible to step away completely if you don’t want to fall behind.
If you’re a parent considering enrolling your kid, don’t sign up just because you’re frustrated with your local school. It’s not an easy fix, and it works for some kids and not others. Before you enroll, do a two-week trial run: wake your kid up at the same time CAVA would start, have them do three hours of structured work at home with only one 10-minute break, and see how it goes. If they can stay on task even when you’re not hovering over them the whole time, it might work. If not, you’re saving yourself a year of fighting and falling behind. Also, set up a dedicated school spot before the first day—no couches, no beds, even a $20 folding card table in the corner of the living room works. I saw far fewer engagement issues with kids who had a separate space just for school.
I left CAVA two years ago because I wanted to cut my hours to spend more time with my niece, who lives nearby. I still keep in touch with three other teachers I worked with there; two love it and plan to stay, one is leaving this year because her caseload keeps going up. Last I heard, Mia just started middle school at CAVA and she’s doing great, and Javi, my wiggly 2nd grader who struggled with independent work, went back to in-person school and now he’s starting on the local soccer team. It’s not the best fit for everyone, and it’s not the worst. If you go into it knowing what to expect, and plan for the messy parts, it can work. But it’s never a one-size-fits-all fix.
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