All Florida public school districts are required by law to offer full-time virtual programs for resident kindergarten through 12th-grade students for the 2009-10 school year, but not all local students are eligible to enroll.

Virtual school, which is instruction through online methods and technology, is an additional schooling option for students, said Patrick Simon, school district director of research and accountability.

Those who are eligible to enroll in state-approved, full-time public virtual schools through the Citrus County School District are considered public school students, Simon said.

Beverly Hills resident Narcisa Cruz recently discovered her granddaughter was ineligible to enroll in public virtual school for kindergarten.

"I feel like we're just being pushed to the side," Cruz said.

The Citrus County School District is contracted with two state-approved public virtual school providers: Florida Virtual School, which includes its Connections Academy, and K12 Florida Virtual Program.

For Cruz, full-time, state-approved public virtual school is appealing. It would allow her granddaughter to participate in public school from home, while leaving time for hands-on, educational experiences, she said.

"We want to be able to put her in the program," Cruz said.

However, Florida legislation states a child is eligible to enroll if he or she was enrolled in public school during October and February of the previous school year, is a dependent child of a member of the military who transferred to the area within the past 12 months from another state or country or was enrolled during the prior school year in a district or state-operated school virtual program.

"The majority of kindergarten students are not eligible. The only ones who are eligible are public school students repeating kindergarten, military dependents and students who were in one of the two (prekindergarten) programs funded by the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) the prior year (students with disabilities and babies of teenage parents)," according to information provided by Florida Department of Education personnel.

The eligibility requirements also prevent home- and private-schooled students from enrolling in state-monitored, full-time public virtual schools through their local school districts.

Cruz said her granddaughter is enrolled in a full-time private virtual school for the 2009-10 school year. She is upset because unlike public virtual school, it costs money and the students are not considered public school students, she said.

She wants legislators to change the eligibility requirements in order to allow home- and private-schooled students, like her granddaughter, to enroll in full-time, state-approved public virtual schools for the 2010-11 school year through their local school districts, Cruz said.

"We want her to be a part of the (public school) system here in Citrus County," Cruz said.