As a Kansas University student pursuing a master’s degree in educational leadership and policy studies, you once would have read a typewritten case study and responded to questions for your class on how to be a principal.

Now, you head to Jayhawkville.

The virtual town and its Jayhawkville United School District are complete with colorful maps including urban to rural schools, pictures of each building, profiles of their principals — foibles included — and graphs of demographics and test scores. You can also meet the school board members and executive team.

With the click of a mouse, students “visit” Jayhawkville’s diverse schools, “meet” leaders and get a feel for each one’s unique circumstances.

Joe Novak, a former principal and current coordinator of the KU School of Education’s master’s program in educational leadership, helped develop Jayhawkville and launched it in courses this spring. Each semester he expects Jayhawkville to get more in-depth and expand to be used in more classes.

A glimpse of a map of Jayhawkville, a virtual town and school district created and launched this spring in master's of education classes at KU.

KU offers two programs toward a master’s in educational leadership, Novak said. In response to demographics showing that most participants are current full-time teachers, many are young parents and they often live outside Lawrence and are unable to attend all classes on campus, one program is totally online and the other is “blended,” with about 75 percent online and 25 percent in class.

Novak said Jayhawkville helps add a face-to-face component of sorts to an otherwise largely isolated program. It also combines theory and research with practical application.

“What we’re trying to do is to create that combination where the students learn, say, a module in effective leadership, and then they are pressed throughout that module to master the content,” Novak said.

Here’s an example of how that works:

In the class on how to be a principal, assignments involving “visits” to Jayhawkville cap every module.

In the module on school culture and climate, for example, students must visit Jayhawkville schools, meet their principals, then identify one exhibiting a positive leadership culture and one exhibiting a negative one in a reflective paper.

Like the real world, this isn’t always cut-and-dried.

Take Jayhawkville North High School Principal Vito Garcia: He’s beloved, enthusiastic and empowering of assistant principals, but can take a long time making decisions because he wants to please everyone. His outgoing and friendly demeanor includes an “eye” for the opposite sex, and his third marriage is to a former student.

Novak worked with Everspring, the company KU has contracted with to develop online courses, to create Jayhawkville.

As he puts it, he and other educators provide content, knowledge and curriculum, and Everspring delivers it, with pictures, graphics, maps, interaction and links on the Jayhawkville website.

“This is the only virtual learning tool of its kind,” Rick Ginsberg, dean of the School of Education, said in a news release from KU. “The innovative technology that we offer our online students provides access to the ever-evolving nature of today’s school district.”

Jayhawkville will be integrated into all KU education master’s degree courses offered online, including global research and school law, according to KU. In the future, it will expand to include the special education graduate program.

Novak retired in 2010 as principal of Mill Valley High School in Shawnee. He said he drew from decades of experience in education — including familiarity with the Kansas City metropolitan and Johnson County areas — to create Jayhawkville.

It’s not a real school district, but you’ll see similarities between Jayhawkville schools and those in Johnson County and other urban sprawling districts nationwide, he said.

As Jayhawkville develops into a more in-depth program, Novak expects to use it for more courses.

“We know that not all future educational administrators will teach or work in an urban school and that some will only work in small rural schools,” he said. “We want them to have data on and experience with all manner of schools.”