Connections Academy

[Tidbits of Learning]

I wanted to warn anyone that was thinking about Connections Academy this year to make sure that your state is sending actual books out. They have changed their policy in a lot of states and now students will only have itexts available unless you purchase the physical texts for them. This is starting in the elementary grade level.

We didn't find out that the kids wouldn't receive print textbooks until we confirmed our registration. To even read their textbooks, they would have had to be on the computer b/c it was all itexts so instead of their estimate on the website of 30% of time on the computer for upper elementary and 50% and up on the computer for middle and high school...it would be 100% of your school day on the computer with no print resources.

They did offer a pdf with the ISBN's for us to purchase the textbooks themselves. They also suggested we could print them at home with our own paper and ink. So the free virtual school that supplied everything for us...well it isn't so free and it doesn't supply anything except online.

Last year, students received books as well as itexts. This year, they are only giving itexts for 3rd grade and up.

[Tidbits of Learning]

We had only registered with them this year. We could only confirm last Monday. We have friends that did Connections last year and they seemed to like it. They contact you a lot. There will be phone calls to your children sporadically. You run a scheduler to assign everything and then you have 2 weeks from the date it is scheduled to turn it in or get a 0. It is very much public school at home.

You can't join the clubs when you enroll. You have to have made it through the first 9 weeks and then it is up to your homeroom teacher whether you can join a club or take an elective. You are only allowed so many electives and some electives are mandatory by state. That means since my state requires art and music that my children can't sign up for the digital art elective class b/c they already have 2 mandatory electives on top of their core classes.

It is going to be different for each and every state. Each school has it's own handbook and rules outside of the initial Connections handbook. You have to do a mandatory amount of hours each day and each week.

We actually chose Connections over K12 b/c of the electives. We only found out about the state mandated electives after confirming and realized that they will be unable to take any other electives. The people that enroll you are not from the school. They are with Connections but not your cyber school. They are often assigned to several schools and can quote general Connections policies, but often do not know what is actually happening in your cyber school.

I had asked many times about the books and how much computer time. I was always quoted the times in my pp and that we would get print books as well as itexts. After confirming, the materials list was all itexts. When I called to find out why I was told wrong, I was told it is different by each state and that it can be misleading during enrollment.

I also talked to several families who had used it last year and received all print books as well as itexts and had a great year. I was excited about it. When I was told that the information on the school site might be misleading and that there was no way to get print books without purchasing them...I was also told that the states can change how the schools are ran and what is supplied to the students yearly and often the schools don't update the information during enrollment. So all of the information you receive during enrollment about the school could be completely wrong by the time the school year starts.

It has been a hassle to get them withdrawn even though they have not received any materials and school has not begun.

My advice would be to call the actual cyber school and get more information. Also some of the curriculum on their site is not necessarily what you will be using. They have changed all of the middle school maths. So what you see on the web site is definitely not what you might receive. Also each state can modify or change the curriculum per state standards and may use their own preference for any given subject. While the site looked really great for 4th grade, my 4th grader would only have received 4 itexts and not all the pretty stuff in the picture on the CA state web site.

I am going to be really upfront. They call it misleading as the states make the final decisions and can change anything year to year, but I call it misrepresentation. I am having a horrible time getting the kids withdrawn and will probably have to deal with truancy letters and such b/c they are dragging their feet on it. My best advice would be to be positive that you want to do CA and to be positive that you are not going to want to withdraw during the year.

[Tidbits of Learning]

Thanks for your input.

 

I definately won't sign anything until I'm sure.

 

We sent my oldest to PS last year because of the struggles he and I have. It pains me for him to be there' date=' and his lovely attitude has only gotten "better" with all the kids from school's influence :glare:

 

He had a ton of trouble with bullies, he had a ton of trouble with keeping his grades up because most of the work was things he saw useless. He is the kind of kid who can read something at lightning speed and it's in his head forever, he doesn't do busy work well.

 

I'm just so torn as to what to do, I have bought everything we would need if he were to come home this year, I watched for super deals and bought over the past year "just in case", and have kind of bounced around the idea of a cyber because I think maybe if he didn't answer to me it would be easier for him to be home... but I'm just not sure.[/quote']

 

My friend has a similar type son who is 13 and in 8th grade this year. He is doing Connections and is doing alright. She still has to be on him to do his assignments. She has to email his teachers to try and get extensions when he gets behind with the "busy" work. It is more busy work than ps gives for sure. He failed quite a bit of the year last year in a few subjects. He made the bare minimum to pass the state test. She is doing it again this year b/c it is better than the battle to homeschool him, but I think it has it's own battle and struggles as well. They resigned themselves to him failing 7th grade for a bit last year b/c he was so far behind in his assignments. His teachers actually dropped a lot of his work at the end of the year so he could finish and pass the grade. She emailed his homeroom teacher and told her that he was so far behind that there was no way for him to finish by the end of the year.

[zenjenn]

I have one friend who did it for half a year. She was stressed out about it and eventually gave up and put them in school in January. Now, to be fair, this is a friend who is easily stressed out so you can take this with a grain of salt, but she was constantly in a tizzy about this or that requirement, teacher meeting, etc, and frankly, it sounded like a whole lot of other people in my homeschool business to me. But I'm very independent-minded. :)

[TranquilMind]

I wanted to warn anyone that was thinking about Connections Academy this year to make sure that your state is sending actual books out. They have changed their policy in a lot of states and now students will only have itexts available unless you purchase the physical texts for them. This is starting in the elementary grade level.

We didn't find out that the kids wouldn't receive print textbooks until we confirmed our registration. To even read their textbooks, they would have had to be on the computer b/c it was all itexts so instead of their estimate on the website of 30% of time on the computer for upper elementary and 50% and up on the computer for middle and high school...it would be 100% of your school day on the computer with no print resources.

They did offer a pdf with the ISBN's for us to purchase the textbooks themselves. They also suggested we could print them at home with our own paper and ink. So the free virtual school that supplied everything for us...well it isn't so free and it doesn't supply anything except online.

Last year, students received books as well as itexts. This year, they are only giving itexts for 3rd grade and up.

I wonder what that is going to do to their eyes, being on the computer all the time. Not pleased with this new development and glad my kids are almost grown. My daughter's school is requiring everyone to have a tablet this year and do much more stuff on the computer.

 

Privacy advocate that I am, I do not appreciate the tracking abilities of this technology. Just today, I was reading that the ACT people (yes, that test that the college-bound take) have developed a Kindergarten tracking survey that will follow all kids throughout school. Ugh.

[BatmansWife]

I wouldn't like that (all the books on computer). We did Connections one year. Let's see....that was maybe 6 years ago. Back then it was books and it wasn't too bad.

[swimmermom3]

I wonder what that is going to do to their eyes, being on the computer all the time. Not pleased with this new development and glad my kids are almost grown. My daughter's school is requiring everyone to have a tablet this year and do much more stuff on the computer.

 

Privacy advocate that I am, I do not appreciate the tracking abilities of this technology. Just today, I was reading that the ACT people (yes, that test that the college-bound take) have developed a Kindergarten tracking survey that will follow all kids throughout school. Ugh.

 

We used Connections Academy through our state last year for my junior who had been in public B&M high school for the first two years. Oregon is an all or nothing state, so we had to do something accredited. It was okay, but not great. The first half of the year, we battled my son being involved in other online activities instead of school. We had economics, algebra, and chemistry texts, but no texts for English 12 or Spanish and it was a pain, especially the Spanish. Also, many of the online K-12 schools are merging with each other and with the textbook companies. I don't have objections to technology in education, but I do have objections to an education that comes from only one or two vendors whose goal is not providing a good education to the American public, but creating a cradle to grave consumer.

 

 

Some of the courses are better than others. My son's Marine Biology course was actually from Florida Virtual Schools through Connections. Many of the links were inoperable and many of the sources' credentials were questionable academically.

 

ETA: Sorry. I got interrupted there and hit the button. We found it to be tough to do a couple of classes without texts and I couldn't imagine doing certain courses like chemistry or math strictly on the computer. It's just too hard on the body.

Edited July 19, 2012 by swimmermom3

[Tidbits of Learning]

I wonder what that is going to do to their eyes, being on the computer all the time. Not pleased with this new development and glad my kids are almost grown. My daughter's school is requiring everyone to have a tablet this year and do much more stuff on the computer.

 

Privacy advocate that I am, I do not appreciate the tracking abilities of this technology. Just today, I was reading that the ACT people (yes, that test that the college-bound take) have developed a Kindergarten tracking survey that will follow all kids throughout school. Ugh.

 

I hadn't thought about how much easier it is to track how much time you are really doing on the work this way. I know a lot of people fudge the hours thing. Example-CA says LA should take 60 min for said lesson...your child finishes reading lesson and all work in 20 min. Most people put 60 min so that they make the hour requirement.

My main problem is how much of our day would be in front of a screen. We don't have cable. Our TV time is normally family tv with movies or such on netflix or renting movies from redbox. The TV isn't on during the day most of the time unless a kiddo is sick and then I indulge. We do have lots of electronics-computers, ipods, nooks, video games...I try to limit their time on them and use them as a reward for finishing school work. You can have 30 min. on your favorite Warrior Cat forum if you finish pre-algebra.

I can't imagine how tired their eyes would be, how many headaches they would acquire, how grumpy and cranky they would get, and all the complications that would arise from them being in front of the computer for 6 hours a day M-F. We had already suffered through the orientation videos before I checked the packing list online and realized no books. My 12, 10, and 9 year old spent 2 hours straight watching the videos and answering the questions at the end of each mini video. My 10 year old logged off and went to relax. I double checked to make sure it had marked her student orientation done and it had somehow missed about 5 mini videos on the orientation as being checked done. I called my 10 year old back to finish as I thought she had overlooked them. She burst into a whiny sob that she had done it and the computer was wrong. She was burnt out just from the student orientation videos and 2 straight hours on the computer. It was shortly after that that I saw all itexts and called to see if there was a mistake. I know we would not be able to stay on the computer all day every day for a school year.

This is the funny part about my reply from the school. They told me all schools were going to itexts not just virtual. They also told me that they realized children with "different" needs might need accommodations. So basically they told me that if I got my kids labelled special needs I would get print books. :tongue_smilie:

[mystika1]

Is there no way of loading the textbooks onto a kindle touch(e ink) so as to save the eyes?

 

Penny

[Tidbits of Learning]

Is there no way of loading the textbooks onto a kindle touch(e ink) so as to save the eyes?

 

Penny

 

They aren't actually ebooks. They are internet texts. They can't be downloaded and you can only print pages that are chapter reviews and such. You would not be able to print out the actual text book at all. You would just be able to view it. You have to view it from inside a web browser.

[mystika1]

They aren't actually ebooks. They are internet texts. They can't be downloaded and you can only print pages that are chapter reviews and such. You would not be able to print out the actual text book at all. You would just be able to view it. You have to view it from inside a web browser.

 

That would be a problem for me also. I don't think this will last very long because I just don't think many parents will go for this. I imagine that they will have a decline in student enrollment because of this.

 

Penny

[Guest MommyDuck]

We are new to GA Connections Academy and we just received our materials this week - online in the materials list of what was going to be shipped it just had itexts for my 3rd and 5th graders - I called to find out if I could get the actual text books and they said the online list was wrong and we would get the text books - when we got our boxes all 4 of my kids (K, 3rd, 5th and 7th) had actual text books - I was very relieved - the materials are all in very good condition and the books are nice big school texts - I wanted to let everyone know what we received because I was nervous after reading this thread :)

 

Maybe this is just in GA - what is everyone else getting?

[BlueTaelon]

That would be a problem for me also. I don't think this will last very long because I just don't think many parents will go for this. I imagine that they will have a decline in student enrollment because of this.

 

Penny

 

 

Many B&M schools are going to itext only to save money on the cost of textbooks and they can quickly update texts when needed. I'm considering this school but not being able to pick and choose like I can with K12 its raising a huge red flag for me, my kid doesn't handle busy work well.

[katemac]

I was considering CA early this year too, but I didn't like to put my kids on the computer too much. I was talking to both CA and K12 rep. The CA rep did not give me a good overview how things work. And I didn't like that I couldn't mix and match according to skills. Actually I think K12 do a better job in walking me through the program. I like that they are willing to adjust the levels according to the child's need. Also, K12 keep assuring me that the online portion is not more than 5-10%, just to check for daily assignment etc. The rest of our days would still be activities and textbook just like how I want it to be. So, I think if I were to engage with virtual school, most probably I'll go with K12

[BlueTaelon]

I was considering CA early this year too, but I didn't like to put my kids on the computer too much. I was talking to both CA and K12 rep. The CA rep did not give me a good overview how things work. And I didn't like that I couldn't mix and match according to skills. Actually I think K12 do a better job in walking me through the program. I like that they are willing to adjust the levels according to the child's need. Also, K12 keep assuring me that the online portion is not more than 5-10%, just to check for daily assignment etc. The rest of our days would still be activities and textbook just like how I want it to be. So, I think if I were to engage with virtual school, most probably I'll go with K12

 

K12 science, art and history are all online and as you get into higher grades more and more content is online. It's at least 20-30% online even in kindergarten.

[Samiam]

I was considering CA early this year too, but I didn't like to put my kids on the computer too much. I was talking to both CA and K12 rep. The CA rep did not give me a good overview how things work. And I didn't like that I couldn't mix and match according to skills. Actually I think K12 do a better job in walking me through the program. I like that they are willing to adjust the levels according to the child's need. Also, K12 keep assuring me that the online portion is not more than 5-10%, just to check for daily assignment etc. The rest of our days would still be activities and textbook just like how I want it to be. So, I think if I were to engage with virtual school, most probably I'll go with K12

 

Don't let yourself be mislead. If you have been speaking with a K12 rep, ie PAL, then they are giving you the standard "stock" answers. Whether or not levels would be adjusted will be COMPLETELY up to your teacher, and your virtual school rules. I'm on a Facebook group with virtual school families from all different states, and as we discuss this and that in our state virtual schools, it's VERY apparent 1. Many states are COMPLETELY different in their rules and regulations and requirements. 2. Many states twist and turn the K12 curriculum to fit their own needs 3. K12 PALs often give wrong/misleading information because they are giving basic K12 info, but it doesn't always apply to YOUR state.

[Pamela H in Texas]

Sommer,

 

I don't know anything about Connections, but I can tell you that we used the state's virtual academy (k12) for 7th and half of 8th (after homeschooling independently and going back to homeschooling independently). It was GREAT! It really did help to have everything laid out and have him accountable to the program, teacher, etc though I still did the greatest amount of organization and making sure the work got done properly. AND it helped him catch up academically (late bloomer).

[faiths13]

I enrolled my ods into 8th grade for Connections this year. We got one small box with all his texts and not much else. I was surprised because with K12 you get 2-3 large boxes full of tons of stuff. Anyway, I was looking around the Connexus and found a list of materials and realized there is a very long list of things I need to supply - nothing expensive but its alot more than with K12. On the list of materials is what they supply - well I got worried about the itexts because I knew I saw some on the list so I just went back and checked and it says all the texts are itexts except one or two - but they sent me all the texts. so weird! i could have sworn when i looked last time there werent that many itexts listed. i hope they dont plan to change it! i will have a problem with that. my ds gets migraines and cant sit on the computer reading all his texts - that would just be overkill.

 

im pretty nervous about trying Connections, but we tried picking our own curric for 2 years and i was just never happy with anything. plus i am looking forward to teacher involvement. im hoping it will work well for my ds.

[katemac]

Looks like it'll be very much dependent on luck then. So may be we should check with families who have used the same K12 virtual school to get better first-hand info. Anyone used CAVA before on this forum?

[honeymommy4]

But CA is still a LOT of work for the parent. either way, we have tried it. I do like the curriculum but if your DS is not an independent worker it will be a lot of legwork for you,.

[Tidbits of Learning]

Here the only way you got books was if your child had an IEP saying they had to have print books. So we switched to K12.

I totally agree with the person who said it is still a lot of work for the parent. We started K12 last week and I have been killing myself juggling my 4th and Kindergartener. Almost 85% of my 4th graders work are offline lessons. My kindergartener has so much work that I feel chained to him.

We are having to assess out a test at a time for my k'er (who did k at home last year but misses the b-day cut off for virtual school).

My 6th and 7th grader are doing great and hardly need me at all. They have called me for Algebra help, but other than that they are completely independent. If I would have realized how intense kindergarten would be and how hard to assess out, then I would just have enrolled my oldest three kids. I am really happy that my ds9 will finally get some help with his struggles in reading and writing with their Mark 12 program.

I think it can be really good and we are definitely keeping on plugging away, but if you have several kids in 4th and below...it is not worth the stress.

[BlueTaelon]

Looks like it'll be very much dependent on luck then. So may be we should check with families who have used the same K12 virtual school to get better first-hand info. Anyone used CAVA before on this forum?

 

 

We have used CAVA off and on the past 5 years and its hit or miss, we've had to request teacher reassignments before when we got teachers we didn't mesh with and it made things very unpleasent but things were fine once we got a more laid back teacher who was cool with my teaching to the objective rather then just blindly following the program and only using K12 materials. We never did the required study island or those weekly eluminate classes since they didn't mesh with our schedule but as long as your not behind they don't seem to have much of a problem with it but we had a very hands off teacher who knew I had 5 years of HS'ing behind me and a lot of familiarity with the program.