Advice on picking a virtual school

[Guest soaringahead]

I live in GA and am trying to decide between two virtual school options. Ga Cyber Academy (k12) vs Connections Academy (Calvert). Connections will be new this year to Ga if all goes well with state issues. (one kiddo going into K and one going into 3rd, but ?highly? gifted, so academically much higher)

 

Is it better to advance by grade level until he is challenged or do gifted versions of grade (based on age) level material? What happens when he gets older...virtual college in middle/high school?

[LittleIzumi]

"Gifted" versions of grade level work tends to be boring, IME. :lol: Just more of the same, but nothing addressing the different way gifted kids think. You need a different program rather than slightly-harder-of-the-same-thing.

Also, from personal experience Calvert is also boring for a gifted kid. I haven't tried K-12. It's popular here though.

[Gratia271]

I live in GA and am trying to decide between two virtual school options. Ga Cyber Academy (k12) vs Connections Academy (Calvert). Connections will be new this year to Ga if all goes well with state issues. (one kiddo going into K and one going into 3rd, but ?highly? gifted, so academically much higher)

 

Is it better to advance by grade level until he is challenged or do gifted versions of grade (based on age) level material? What happens when he gets older...virtual college in middle/high school?

 

I cannot speak to virtual schools, but generally it is better to advance by grade level until he is challenged. One cautionary note, though.... there is significantly more output required in higher grades, so you need to consider that in making your decision. One close friend of mine uses K-12, and she pulled back with her gifted daughter because of the writing requirements. Her daughter could do the work, but the amount of output required really overwhelmed her.

[LisaKinVA]

I just pulled all 3 of mine out of the K12 academy. My children all tested well above grade level (WELL above). The spoken expectations were that if a child was "capable" of learning the material, they should be "more than capable of handling the output," and being graded "based upon the level of the material, not their actual grade. :001_huh:

 

There is a lot of output in the lessons... history, science and literature are easy to enrich, (I don't normally suggest radically accelerating K12 in history or science), but unfortunately literature is also tied to the rest of LA -- which has a lot of output.

 

Math has a pretty much standard progression. You can get into high school classes (my 11yo was slated for both high school math and science next year...he's so not ready for that, well at least not the part where he'd be graded like a 9th grader...lol)

 

All of my kids are seriously burnt out. They weren't bored, but it became more about checking off a box to meet the "requirements" and the pressure and constant test prep, etc. It just became too much.

 

The VA academy also just passed new rules which mandate a student remaining in the age-grade level they are placed in for at least 3 months before being able to switch. Of course, once they switch they STILL have to get up to the 80% complete to "pass" the course by the end of school. It was a double whammy. Spend 3 months bored, and then get into more challenging material only to have to do it rapidly as well.

 

For my youngest (he started VAVA in 1st grade), this would have meant taking a child who could easilly read chapter books, and had his nose stuck in the human anatomy book and Kingfisher's encyclopedias was spending 3 months reviewing phonics lessons we completed 2 years earlier. Math was bad enough, and they allowed him to start in 2nd grade math (which we finished in 3 months, and then moved into 3rd grade math, which he completed in 5).

 

Not trying to be a "Debbie Downer" -- but my kids are HG and while it was fine for awhile, it really stops being fine when all they want to do is check off a stinkin' box! (My dd who did just fine with all of the additional output for all of her accelerations was even burned out... my boys, it was just that much worse).

[KatDilan]

All of my kids are seriously burnt out. They weren't bored, but it became more about checking off a box to meet the "requirements" and the pressure and constant test prep, etc. It just became too much.

 

:iagree:

 

I am going "indie" with my homeschooling next year after doing 1st grade for my ds with K12 this year. Reasons:

 

1. Lot's of busy work for each topic. (When ds has it, he has it. Repetition breeds boredom)

2. I have 3 children. I don't want to teach history & science 3 times a day. I prefer to teach it once and adjust the assignments to ability.

3. The math & phonics are poorly integrated with their OLS. Tons of glitches, inconsistencies, and inconveniences.

4. Lack of advertised flexibility.

[radiobrain]

I have not done an eschooling.

 

This year, I was researching it as an option for my soon to be 6th grader, as I was thinking I wanted him to be assessed for an LD and get some services and an IEP w/o paying for it.

 

I will not judge you on your reasons for choosing an eschool. :D To me it is still better than going to a B & M school.

 

I am 99% sure that I will not choose to go that route.

 

However, I know that I would pick K12 over the one using Calvert. I have seen parts of both curriculum and K12 is better, IMHO. My problem with K12 is that they are PUSHY. I wanted to get a print catalog for my research and I had to put in my phone number, 2 min after I entered the info, they called. WTH?! I have received 5 calls since then and several emails. It really makes me angry. I explained over and over what I am deciding about and their calling me will ensure that I don't use them.

 

Oh well.

 

Any eschool will have it's irritating hoops to jump through, and it will be the price you pay for getting everything free. Some things will be hideous, others no big whoop. Make sure you really get some things worked out with whatever teacher you are assigned. Many times they don't know about the acceleration part, as they mostly encounter kids on the slower side.

 

Good luck, whatever you choose!

[newbie]

To avoid all the test drama and hoops, so K12independent. If you pay there is a lot less drama.

 

Now, I dont know if your kids are old enough, but Veritas PRess is good.

 

And Keystone, doesnt have many hoops or pressure, but I was independent there too. Something to chek out.

[Tarreymere]

I have to agree with the previous posters. We have tried Calvert and it was boring. We have tried K-12, and while it was the best of the cyber charter curriculum there really is a lot of busywork. I think if you are limited to choosing a cyber charter for a gifted child you will probably do better with one that offers the K12 curriculum. K12 is unquestionably better than B&M schools.

 

Of course, I think the best option for a gifted kid is a curriculum specifically tailored to that child but if you can't offer that right now then by all means you should consider K12. I think K12 is the next best thing.

 

Good luck!

[ehommel]

Oh wow, I just posted a question on another thread that is totally answered by this one. I am deciding between Calver and k12 and I'm so glad that I've enrolled them in k12 (i was freaking out for a bit.) This thread makes me feel SO much better. Thanks! Does anyone on here know more about how they are about doing the busywork. If my child understands the material and we decide to skip/or check the rest of the work as done. Will it cause any problems? I have a gifted child, but I don't think I'd accelerate her. She's only gifted in reading and art, but actually striggles with math. I think she'd be fine on grade level. I'm a bit nervous about my Kindergardener, I hope it doesn't take us the 6 hours they claim it should.

[Crimson Wife]

Do you have the option of using a charter that provides a stipend for the (secular) curriculum of your choice? That is a much better way to go IMHO for gifted kids than an all-in-one school like Calvert or K12.

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

Oh wow, I just posted a question on another thread that is totally answered by this one. I am deciding between Calver and k12 and I'm so glad that I've enrolled them in k12 (i was freaking out for a bit.) This thread makes me feel SO much better. Thanks! Does anyone on here know more about how they are about doing the busywork. If my child understands the material and we decide to skip/or check the rest of the work as done. Will it cause any problems? I have a gifted child, but I don't think I'd accelerate her. She's only gifted in reading and art, but actually striggles with math. I think she'd be fine on grade level. I'm a bit nervous about my Kindergardener, I hope it doesn't take us the 6 hours they claim it should.

 

I would ask the school detailed questions about assignments to be handed in for the year, expectations regarding completion of lesson activities when one has mastered the objectives for the lesson, etc. Our school told us generally that if one has mastered the objectives for the lesson, then one may skip to the lesson assessment and complete that only. However, I have heard that the new math for k12 makes it difficult to do just the assessment but I can be wrong. Also, our school gave us the assignments that had to be handed in for the year in the beginning of the year which consisted of about 10-12 math assessments and 10- 12 language arts assessments and a handful of science and history assessments.

 

I was careful with ds to make sure he really did master the objectives with K12 and we did do 90% of the work but we spread it out 7 days a week:D My son is a very strong reader so we did the phonics as spelling instead with a notebook and the K12 workbook.

 

HTH:001_smile:

[LisaKinVA]

Our VA didn't check every assignment. We had to turn in certain ones. I made sure *everything* was done on the assignments we submitted.

 

The remainder of the work, I picked and chose which "extras" we'd do (if any). I marked the assignments complete if I felt they were complete.

 

The new Math+ makes it very difficult to skip things. So much is on-line, it makes it almost impossible. We went from 30min. on math to a minimum of 60, and sometimes 120min. on math (not because there was "more"), but because of the format... adding to other issues being 2+ years accelerated in math already brings.

 

There is a minimum of 80-85% completion required to move on to the next grade. Over 90% earns you an "exceeds." We skipped quite a bit (I didn't mark it as complete, we just SKIPPED it), that i felt was extraneous/non-essential, and all of my children still reached the 90%+ mark (my oldest daughter did complete 100%)

[courtney.byrum]

Oh wow, I just posted a question on another thread that is totally answered by this one. I am deciding between Calver and k12 and I'm so glad that I've enrolled them in k12 (i was freaking out for a bit.) This thread makes me feel SO much better. Thanks! Does anyone on here know more about how they are about doing the busywork. If my child understands the material and we decide to skip/or check the rest of the work as done. Will it cause any problems? I have a gifted child, but I don't think I'd accelerate her. She's only gifted in reading and art, but actually striggles with math. I think she'd be fine on grade level. I'm a bit nervous about my Kindergardener, I hope it doesn't take us the 6 hours they claim it should.

 

Each VA is different in how they handle things. We skipped quite a bit of the busy work with both kids this past year. Our VA requires only 1 assignment for each class be turned in each quarter. We choose the assignment it just has to have the same date on the papers as in the OLS.

 

As we get into material that they are actually having to learn/do work for it is harder to skip some things but we find every so often that they just 'get' the material and really don't need to do all the work. I'll spot check with the math for my 6 yo by choosing which problems to have him do to make sure we get a variety. My only issue was he's 6 so his attention and writing abilities are that of a 6 yo but he's doing 4th grade math so it's not a consumable workbook like the lower grades have. Often I would write the problems down on his paper for him to then solve (since that's what it would have been like had he had 1st grade math).

 

We found with our VA that it was very easy to go through the things that were just too easy (phonics and much of grade 1 LA for my son and pretty much all of K for my daughter) and they ordered the next levels as needed.

 

With the new Math+ you can skip parts of the lesson instead of doing ALL the online stuff or if they really get it you can often do ONLY the online OR offline stuff and then move on instead of doing both. My daughter likes to do the online stuff even when it's too easy so I let her go at it until she decides she's done and then I see what we can skip and what needs to be done.

[mom-2-1]

Thanks for this thread---great responses! Very helpful:-)