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K12 curriculum


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My oldest is using K12 for high school this year through the virtual academy in MN. We used the elementary/middle school curriculum for several years independently. She's currently a straight A student in MNVA.

 

The curriculum is quite good, but I honestly don't think there's all that much difference between K12 at the high school level and other online high school providers, comparing what she's doing with what some of her friends in other online programs are doing. At the elementary and middle school levels, K12 was fairly unique in what they were offering. That doesn't seem to be the case at the high school level. She enjoys the literature, history and foreign language components, but can't stand the science course. Last semester, she had to take health, which was particularly silly, yet loads of work. Many of the elective courses are created by http://www.giantcampus.com/ and inserted into the K12 LMS.

 

We are planning on going back to homeschooling independently next year.

 

One issue for us is that while K12 offers honors versions of its courses, our virtual academy cannot offer an honors section of a course unless there are enough students who qualify. MNVA placed my daughter in 10th grade honors English (LAC II Honors), but that's the only honors course they were able to offer her. The school was as accommodating as they could be, accepting her previously earned English credits from the state university, but communication from the school is often poor.

 

We also aren't crazy about the impersonal nature of the online courses. Maybe that's an issue for all online high schools... I don't know. But unless a student is doing poorly, the teachers don't seem to spend any time getting to know them. The grade reports we receive all had the same formulaic comment under each course name, "Well done! Keep up the good work!" There's been very little personal feedback on assignments.

 

There's a lot of written work required, which is fine for my daughter, who is a strong writer, but some people complain about it. Scheduling is haphazard sometimes. Some weeks are light, and then some weeks are full of unit assessments and science labs. She's limited in how far ahead she can work in the courses, and in some cases, she can't view what's coming to plan out the weeks ahead. That makes it hard for us to plan things as a family. This semester, the school finally created a master schedule for Class Connect online sessions, because so many of them were overlapping each other, making it hard on the kids who wanted to attend the lectures.

 

My daughter feels there aren't enough supervised discussion opportunities. During Class Connect sessions, the chat boxes are usually being spammed by students with stupid stuff, so teachers often turn them off, or ignore the legitimate questions that get posted.

 

Another big reason for us going back to homeschooling is because we miss the interaction with each other. My daughter really misses the discussions we used to have, as do I, and it's hard to me to follow what she's doing with her coursework right now. She works completely independently, and the parent version of the LMS is not very informative. I have to log into her account for each course if I want to actually see what she's doing. For that reason, K12's high school courses are best for a self-motivated kid who has decent time management skills and the ability to work independently. I can't see holding her hand through this stuff...

 

Most of our issues are specific to our virtual academy, so if you're considering using the K12 high school courses independently, our experiences might not be useful. I think K12's courses offer an excellent high school education, and any kid using them would be well served. I just don't think it's the best fit for us at this point.

 

When I asked for her review, my daughter said, "K12's high school is great, *if* you can do it properly. The math curriculum is awesome, but the science could use some work." :lol:

 

Hope this helps!

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