Sid Miller’s triumph: Virtual academy opens doors to new opportunities
Aug 8, 2025
Cedar Grove’s Sid Miller has overcome challenges and found success in education and earning an internship after enrolling in the Wisconsin Virtual Academy.
Miller was born very prematurely which caused him to have hearing and vision impairments. “I was only one kilogram. I have moderate to severe bilateral sensorineural hearing loss and I am completely blind in the right and legally blind in the left eye. I had many surgeries in the first year of my life,” Miller stated.
He said that his early educational experiences were quite negative prior to going to the Wisconsin Virtual Academy. “Before I found the Virtual Academy, my early school experiences were a bit different. While traditional schools are a great fit for many, I personally found I was not always getting the accommodations or support that I needed to do well. It just was not the best fit for my learning style.”” Miller said. “My mom learned about WIVA through the internet and some people who went there. Compared to brick-and-mortar school, WIVA was the perfect school for a person like me. I was able to do school from home using my large monitor and technology to access the information and the teachers were very kind and helpful. WIVA had the same required classes as brick and mortar but they also offered other more specialized classes like Veterinary Science and Atmospheric Science and many extracurricular social groups and clubs. If I needed help with an assignment or accommodations, the teachers went out of their way to provide me with what I needed. For example, I learned that I could get live captioning for all of my classes and then get a transcript after class. This was a big help because I could use the transcript as notes and to get information I may have missed.”