Hey all! My SIL has two daughters aged 14 and 12...I forget what grades they are in, but they are in age appropriate grades, as far as I know. She plans to enroll them in online ps as soon as possible, and asked me for help. The only online ps I know of is k12, and I'm going to sit online and research it tonight after the kids are in bed. Just wanted to ask you guys what you know about this, or any other online schools. The reviews on their website are mostly glowing with praise, but I wanted to see if I could find real life opinions and experiences from you. She is in California, and has been living overseas for a number of years now. They only come here in the summers. Unfortunately, this time she hasn't gone back home because of my FIL's ilness...and might stay here for a few more months. The girls have already missed 3 months of school and are falling terribly behind., so she needs to do something soon. Thanks for your help
On-line schools vary as much as private schools do. some are pretty good, others are lousy. My oldest is in one right now. She is a Senior, and only takes one class with them on-line and then takes others at the community college, where they foot the bill. It's working well for us. My sil, however, did a different on-line school one year and was frustrated with it. It lacked flexibility, so the kids had to be on at very specific times. This meant that she couldn't go apple picking or any other field trips I invited her to go on. Plus, her one son who takes a while to learn things got sick. This put him behind. They told her that he'd have to double up on the lessons to catch up. And she felt they were going too fast for him to begin with!
Online PUBLIC schools are still public schools. She can get info about them online from their school district, or call the central office of their school district. It MAY not be possible to enroll except before the beginning of the year, so that may work out and it may not. K12 and Connections Academy are the two I've heard of. You can also do these NOT in connection with the local school district, just like any other private online school. Other online schools are NOT PUBLIC, but they'll vary, like Jackie said. I think some if not all can start any time of the year. Keystone Academy, is a private school that is now part of the K-12 system. http://keystoneschoolonline.com/ There's PennFoster http://penn-foster.com/ , American School http://www.americanschoolofcorr.com/ , James Madison online high school http://www.ashworthcollege.edu/programs/high-school/, and plenty more (but these are the 3 I've heard of most). Christian private academies, like Alpha Omega's program, are available too.
I enrolled all 3 of my kids in k-12 (through CAVA, CA Virtual Academy) when we moved to a new city. I was very disappointed in k12 for a variety of reasons. I will try to highlight the main reasons here: *The curriculum consisted of going online for certain things, go offline for other things then go back online to answer a few questions and mark the lesson complete. This back and forth thing drove my older two (6th and 8th at the time) crazy. They did not like it. *One of my kids was not at grade level in math. The school outright refused to change her curriculum. Even though she could not follow the lessons and failed every lesson did not change the school's decision. k-12 is definately "One size fits all". *We joined late (in December) and the school REQUIRED my kids to "catch up" and do every lesson they had missed. For my older two, it was an unbelievable pile of work that they were expected to do "after their normal day's lessons and on the weekends". A normal day's lessons might take 7-8 hours, with most days exceeding that or being carried over to the next day. *For my younger one, kindergarten, they required 7 classes. They were a wierd, hodge-podge of levels, in my opinion. The reading instruction was confusing. The science and music subjects were so very simplistic it was ridiculous. The social studies would have been more suitable for 2nd grade, not a kinder. Even more annoying, she was to do all that back work even if she knew the material. They wanted to see the pile of paperwork. Try getting a kinder to sit and do not only the daily lessons but make up lessons as well. *ZERO support from the certified teacher. She told me straight out that she would ONLY be collecting the work. Our meetings would last less than 15 min for all three kids. When I needed help for my child's math problems, she flat out told me NOTHING would be done for her, and that we should expect my daughter to fail math. I guess these problems would be with CAVA not k12 but even so, I was not impressed with the curriculum we were using. What area is your friend in? I know of a few in Sacramento area and central valley. They cover wide areas and several counties. Let me know the area and I'll send some links.
I think it's the "one size fits all" that causes problems. If you can find a Virtual School that can work with you and is flexible, it can be a good thing. But again, it depends on the school itself.
@mom_2_3 My SIL is near Palmdale, but I dont know what county. I was looking up the ones in CA, and there are SO many!! I'd really appreciate the links if you get a chance So many of the online schools boast such a dream situation, you'd think there was no better option. Unfortunately, like many of you said, it's not all true. I will share all this with her, and thanks for the responses!
Would your sister consider a charter over a K-12 program? If she is in SoCal, she will most likely not find a really great K-12 or charter program. There are a couple good charters but the good ones also have waiting lists. Have her check out Gorman. I do not know if they are all over SoCal but it is worth a try. My sister's children are enrolled in Gorman and over all the charters she has tried, Gorman is the best by far. It is very public school at home but still, the teachers seem to work with the students at a pace that is student friendly. It is a state accredited program but funded differently than most charters so it has some room to play. I do not care for K-12 or charter programs but if I had to put Ems in one, I would go with Gorman.
I almost forgot to add that I am not sure if all Gorman schools offer online courses. My niece takes part online courses and part textbook courses. The other two nieces work strictly out of textbooks.
I have gone to a lot of school get-togethers for a k12 school where I live and the parents really, really like it. We have talked with a number of teachers and belong to the facebook page. I really think it is more have the school is run and not just k12. Most will have those face-to-face meetings and information sessions. I would suggest that she attend some for her local school and see if it is a good fit for her kids.
Seek, I would say MANY have those meetings, not MOST. We have had difficulty with Rachael's stuff being graded in a timely manner. And some idiot in Cleveland decided she was "truant", because she was logging on and then logging off, not taking into consideration that she was taking three college classes. He shut her out from the computer until he "talked" with her, and then was at meetings for two days so she couldn't get in touch with hier. Plus there were parent conferences the night she was shut out in our area; we found out about it the next day when she was finally able to get back on the computer. I would have no patience with them if it weren't for her college classes.
I read about that. I'm sorry that happened to her. I don't think that I would be a part of any school public or private that did not offer some kind of face-to-face meeting. Everyone should have the opportunity to know what and who they are handing their kid over to for 6 plus hours a day.
I am in the Central Valley of CA and I use Connecting Waters Charter School. Unfortunately, I personally don't know of any charters in LA County. Your SIL can check out: http://www.greatschools.org/ If you have a name of charter you want to check out, enter it and see the reviews for it. Hope this helps!
We did K12 for 1 month, I don't know why we were enrolled for that long, after the first week we were falling behind. My ds or I could keep up with all the work, plus be online for the different meetings with the teachers. It is just like a public school, but you do everything online. I think the draw with this is: no going to a school, free computers and free curriculum. They really expected too much. We were up until midnight trying to get the basics done for all the teachers. It just didn't work for us. Just my opinion.
It's amazing how many people have said that it's so hectic...the homeschool meeting I went to once asked everyone why they wanted to hs. One lady with little kiddies (!!)said she did k12,and she was "exhausted". Others nodded knowingly... What on earth do they possibly do for so long that takes that much time?? Is it homework? Extra assignments?
Two and a half years ago I pulled my son out of our local public school and enrolled him in K12 online charter school for 4th grade. I wanted to homeschool him but was very unsure if I would be able to do it by myself...so that is why I went with K12. Well, when the box of K12 school materials arrived it was a stack of books nearly 3ft high! I logged online to see his daily class "schedule" and I was completely floored...it was a TON of work! I immediately realized that there was NO way my son and I could get through everything K12 was expecting on a daily basis. LOTS of busy work. So, I sent the books back and enrolled him in Connections Academy. The first year at Connections was good. Although it was a lot of work, it wasn't as bad as K12. Plus, they gave real letter/number grades...not the Mastered/Not Mastered grading system of K12. My son didn't attend the daily Live Online Lessons very often...they were boring and frought with technical issues. The second year was just OK, and by the end of the year we were exhausted and relieved it was over. This year was a whole different ballgame...my son went into the 6th grade and he had teachers for each subject, plus a homeroom teacher. His Live Lesson schedule was insane and at the beginning of the year they lasted 1hr. per day...which was IN ADDITION to his regular work. So, if my son had a 1hr. science live lesson on Tues., he would also have to complete his regular science work in addition to the LL. That would put us at around 2 hours for Science, then we would have to do the rest of his subjects. It was TOO much! Then the serious tech issues with LL started. And don't even get me started with the massive number of emails from all of my son's teachers....UGH! I couldn't keep track of everything the teachers wanted/expected. So, right before Christmas, I pulled my son out of Connections and am now homeschooling him the traditional way. I think that the online charter public schools are good for very independent students who like traditional textbook style studies with some videos thrown in. Connections was very textbook based despite being an "online" school. The online tests with automatic grading were convenient...I didn't have to grade any quizzes or tests. BUT, the pace of the lessons went way too fast and if we got behind...it became overwhelming. The LL were boring with technical issues that never seemed to end. There was NO flexibility with the lessons. The joy of learning was gone. My son just didn't do well with the all textbook based format. He just tuned out.
Thanks for the comments here. I'm still trying to decide how to handle my son's next school year, so this thread has helped. I would like to add some of our experience with CAVA this last school year. It was truly awful. Based on the K12 website, I thought online learning with a school using their curriculum would be great. The site talks of flexibility and using different grade levels for your student. My son has mild/moderate dyslexia and ADHD, and failed math the year before, so he needed to take that level of math over. Turned out that CAVA does not do what K12 says - students have to take only grade level classes. Needless to say, my son failed math again (I wanted to pull him out, but we have great difficulties with his dad and I didn't want to get into that here!). There was way too much work for him to do, particularly with the issues he has. CAVA just didn't care at all. I had sent them two different learning assessments, from a private professional and from Kaiser Permanent's professional, but they ignored these even though they ask at enrollment for them. It took a long time to actually really discuss this with them and once I did, they discouraged the testing done by the public schools. Even if he had that test, my son would get minimal help out of it - just more work on top of a heavy load. This school is not out to help students, only keep their numbers and funding, as far as I can tell. We had quite a few other problems as well, although the teacher was nice. The grading is very weird and may not be at all reflective of what the student does or does not know. They encourage everyone to just fill things in to get things done and "be mastered." I had the worst time with them this second semester, having to talk with the superintendent where the school is registered, because they wanted my son to go back and do last semester work even though he had gotten graded for that work already. I wouldn't fill in those lessons for him (some of it was too hard and he'd have to restudy things, which he didn't have time for), so they did some of that themselves. Also, he got an "A" in math the first semester because I helped him with his lessons and because of other strange grading policies they have, even though he probably failed the 2nd semester (I said above that he failed, and as far as I know he did, but you never know with CAVA!). He had gotten a "C" in history the first semester, even though that was his best subject! We also had problems simply telling them our new address since we had moved (truly crazy), etc. It was a nightmare and all of it truly does take anything positive out of learning. I very much want to do traditional homeschooling since I think I know what would help my son (and following recommendations from the private professional who assessed him). Anyway, just wanted to warn people about CAVA in S Cal - I don't know yet if the other charter schools that use the K12 curriculum are the same.
