We have enjoyed using My Father's World for high school, using their 9th and 10th grade curricula covering ancient and world history. Their 11th grade year for American history, literature, and biblical worldview looks equally impressive. Their schedules were a terrific way for my son to read through the entire Bible in two years and experience lots of classic literature, history, and primary source excerpts from In Their Words with the Notgrass Exploring World History books. MFW has a gradual approach of adding a little bit more challenge each year, both in writing and reading. Most of the books are reusable. It will only cost $100 (for non-reusable items) with my second child in ancient history next year. Here's a link for more info: https://www.mfwbooks.com/cat/14/DECLARE-9th-to-12th-/

Thank you, Cintinative. Your gentle words of advice about the Christian way to handle conflict are right. I did react because of stress, pride, and anger. And I was inflexible because I saw incompetence and desired something better. The problem grew into a log in my eye when I inflexibly insisted on a change. Matthew 18:15-17 (NLT) says: "If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won't accept the church's decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector." I am probably the sinner in this passage. My reaction to the owner of TPS at support@thepottersschool.org was harsh. I was judged to be one who does not listen and certainly did not accept the refusal for a teacher change. And I acted on my own, without one or two others beside me. Emailing back and forth is difficult when resolving a conflict. It is more impersonal than a forum. I am thankful to have been able to communicate with you and with other homeschool moms about this situation. I'm still working on forgiveness and understanding.

Thanks JazzyMom and Lovinglife123. I was stressed out because there was so much out of my control that day. A cat was going at both ends with what may have been food poisoning, so I was cleaning up all sorts of icky things. One vehicle was diagnosed with needing a huge repair. And my son was upset and confused. It an awful "trifecta of trash" day. It was my fault for blowing up, and I over-reacted badly. Francis, I would agree that kindness from Christian organizations in the US has been on the decline. We have been here in US, but I guess we've been a little sheltered as members of some great Christian organizations near us with dedicated believers who strive to serve others first. And I have made some excellent friends in those groups in the last decade. We live in an expensive area where most people are non-believers and vote for liberal politicians. Rather than create a fuss, we quietly live alongside them avoiding discussions about politics, religion, or money. But if those topics arise, I usually nod my head in agreement and change the topic....a chicken tactic, but better than losing a new acquaintance. And that's probably what should be done with this discussion. 🤣 I learned my lesson and need to nod my head and move on.

Thank you, Clemsondana. I appreciate the logical explanation of how online educational organizations are set up. Jean in Newcastle, I'm really "feeling the burn" from your emboldened opinions of me. Probably that's payback from my criticism of TPS. Yes, I question the spiritual depth of an organization and expect a higher level of "What would Jesus do?" from places that educate and teach Christian classes to children. I was pretty traumatized and frustrated by my interactions with TPS. I'm still in shock about it.

Yes, I over-reacted and over-escalated my response. I blew it and have paid the price. Our money will be spent elsewhere. At first, I was trying to be helpful in alerting TPS that their support channels of communication were not working well. Then when I was told to try again with the new teacher, I declined. It is my fault for blowing the situation out of control. I was unreasonable to ask for a different teacher to replace the writing teacher that left mid-year. However, I've never been told by customer service (or anyone else) that my children or I have emotional / mental health issues and never been kicked out of an educational environment. And the insensitive response from customer support was out of line, especially from a company that professes to be a Christian one. My view of TPS is that they should not call themselves a school if they aren't one. It is an online co-op employing many teachers that we pay to educate our children. I expected a higher level of customer service and was disappointed.

I wasn't able to get my son to rejoin the class because he kept saying the teacher told him he was wrong. I decided it would be best to just alert TPS through the online chat that there had been a problem. TPS chat was helpful in saying that teacher was not aware she had a new student. They would notify her, but she was not at fault. They apologized for what happened to my son. I said that I was very sorry, but I still did not feel comfortable with my son attending the class. All I knew at the time was a teacher had upset my child and had not listened to the class recording yet. TPS chat said they could look into the possibility of changing the class but could not promise they would be able to accommodate the request. That should have been my clue that it was not going to happen. After hearing nothing from TPS, I wrote an email to support@thepottersschool.org and, little did I know, began communicating with the owner of TPS. And I reiterated what had occurred with my son and the conversation with the chat online. Then, I was too honest. 😬 I expressed being upset at the lack of communication between tech admins at TPS and the new teacher. They had dropped the ball by not alerting her to the new student. My hope had been that he would have been welcomed as a new student joining the class. I felt the teacher was not wise enough to teach my son because she immediately accused my son to be in error. The response from TPS was that my son was shy and that I should attend the next class session with him. If I had have done this, everything would have been fine. Instead, I escalated the situation by listening to the recording of the class, heard the teacher say, "I think you're wrong" and persisted in my request to have my son changed to a classroom with a better teacher. I also emailed the teacher to explain why I didn't want to have my son in her class. My boldness and bluntness was too much honesty. TPS sent me an email with the above quoted paragraph. And my son was kicked out with the promise of a refund (which we have not seen yet). It was my previous MBA education that got me thinking. In what state was the Potter's School located? How many people ran it? How large an organization had I just offended? I felt really bad and lost sleep because of the email communication I'd received and given about customer support lacking at TPS and couldn't understand why it had all gone so wrong. Then I saw it was a one-man operation, and it all made perfect sense. The quality of a one-man business is based on the quality of the person running it. My parents ran a small real estate business, buying small houses and office buildings in northern Virginia for over 50 years. They were very good at it because they listened to the people who leased and rented space from them to work and live and had a high level of personal customer service. They sought to improve the properties they owned and fixed problems quickly. At times my mother would get a call for help.... A/C too cold, lost keys, leaking faucet, running toilet, etc. and immediately call a repairman or call my father to help fix a problem. My expectation of service at TPS was of a similar level of help. We've spent thousands of dollars there to help educate our children. Our family was experiencing confusion and problems with a new teacher. We desired a change. The Support channels at TPS were unable to listen to our call for help and expressed personal animosity toward us when we insisted on needing a change. Several of my friends have experienced similar frustrations when asking for help or refunds at TPS. I wanted to review the company online, and I thought the Well Trained Mind forum would be a good place to spread the word to be careful. If you know of a better place to provide reviews on homeschool class providers, I would love to know this.

Yes, the teacher was not alerted that my son was joining her class. She may have flashed back to the early pandemic online classrooms when kids were dropping into Zoom classes because the security features were not tight. TPS has fine security, but she did not know this. My concern was the treatment I received as a parent from TPS support. It didn't really matter why my child and I wanted to switch to another class. We probably should have lied and said we had a scheduling conflict and needed a different day/time. When we asked to have help in changing teachers and expressed the reasons we believed the teacher was not a good fit for our son, our request was denied absolutely. And the advice given to us was laced with a "you're the problem, we aren't" attitude. If I had not researched the company online, I would have felt far more hurt by the insensitive treatment we received from a request to change a teacher. Many families are unaware that companies that call themselves online schools may be owned and run by one person who contracts out the labor. All the emails we received from TPS support used the phrases "the school" or "we at TPS". My posting is meant to warn others to be careful online because not everything is as it seems when you are using online classrooms.

Our family has used The Potter's School (TPS) for the last three years and spent thousands of dollars on their classes for our three homeschooled children. We have been delighted by the progress and growth of our children, especially in the foreign language and writing classes taken there. The teachers at TPS have been excellent. However, a recent experience with their company has soured us on ever using TPS again. In February, we were told my son's Writing 6 teacher was leaving, and we would need to choose to join another section of class. My son logged into his new class, and I left for a few minutes, and when I returned, my son was in tears. He told me that the teacher had said he was in the wrong class. Long story short, I emailed support@thepottersschool.org politely with my concerns about the teacher and asked to have him changed to another teacher. The reply from TPS was that my son was shy and that a class change could not happen. When I emailed back more aggressively that this was unacceptable for us AND emailed the teacher that I needed another class for my 6th grade son, I was dropped like a hot rock. We were emailed polite responses and told that we would be receiving a refund for the remainder of the year. On its face, the process appeared to be normal, but I felt deeply offended and lost sleep because of this paragraph from the "polite email" sent by support@thepottersschool.org because it insinuated that our family had psychological issues: "However, we see that you intend to hold TPS and the teacher unilaterally responsible for unrecoverably traumatizing your student. TPS cannot continue to provide you teaching where you would make the school and teacher unilaterally responsible for your student's mental health and reactions in all situations. The classrooms are as safe as can be (and we provide full information on this on our web site), the course content is carefully designed for young learners, and the teachers are protective, gracious, and affirming. However, the school and teachers cannot take the unilateral responsibility for your student's emotional responses and mental health as you are demanding." Due to my curiosity about who The Potter's School is (because no mailing address or phone number is given online), I went to Dun and Bradstreet's website to learn more about the company. And I felt like the little barking dog Toto who pulled the curtain back to reveal the Wizard of Oz....because I learned that TPS has one employee based in Springfield, VA. And the one employee who replied through support@thepottersschool.org is the owner of the company. https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.potters_school.395c6322a7c9dcbc4a04fe896222e01c.html TPS has wonderful teachers, but they are all contractors employed by one person who is not afraid of offending parents or teachers. The quality of the man who owns a one-person company will determine the quality of the products and customer service you receive. We made waves by not accepting the single course of action that my family was given: accept the new teacher you chose earlier or we will kick you out because it's all your fault for being difficult. That is why we will never use TPS again.