K12 and Connections Academy

[Jaybee]

Sorry, but this may be long. I have some questions if any of you have used these. I'm not interested in the "homeschooling or not" questions related to them, I am just trying to figure out what would be best for my son. He is going into 8th grade this fall. With my older kids, when they entered high school, I moved them into more independence by using an online or correspondence school, or they went to a small excellent school that was near us at the time. I'm just ready to be mostly done with homeschooling by high school, and my boys, especially, have needed to answer to someone besides mom by then. We are no longer in the location of that wonderful school, so that is not an option. Money is an issue, so a private school is also not an option.

 

This ds has expressive language disorder (basically, dyslexia), and I have used remedial materials with him. However, I am wanting to gear things up a bit but not overload him (or me). We do not feel he is ready for the public schools nearby, and we also may be moving to another state soon after school starts. I really don't know what to do with him at this point. He is quite bright, and you would never know he has any trouble with school work if you met him and talked with him. He reads quite well, so you wouldn't notice from that either. But there are glitches. Lots of glitches. He has been evaluated, so we do have the reports and diagnoses from that. 

 

I am wondering if either K12 or Connections would work for him. They both say that they work with students with learning disabilities, but I don't want to get into it and find ourselves in a big mess. I have heard that these are run much more "schoolish" than we have homeschooled. Another option I am considering is to use American Correspondence School. Ds16 is using it, and it is a perfect fit for him. But he doesn't have any learning disabilities and does it all on his own. 

 

Any suggestions, ideas, knowledge to share? I am choosing to post here rather than the learning challenges board or other boards because this forum is more active and has a wider variety of users.

 

ETA: He does not do well on tests. At all. I don't know that he could pass one on just about anything. Which is a shame, because he is bright. But tests don't work for him. I don't quite know what to do about this.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Jaybee

[fairfarmhand]

We really do love Connections. The teachers, overall have been great. No learning disabilities, but I suspect that you may need to follow up with your son each day to make sure he's not mixed up something essential. This will be easy because you'll have a login and you can see what he did that day and how he scored on his daily work.

[Jaybee]

We really do love Connections. The teachers, overall have been great. No learning disabilities, but I suspect that you may need to follow up with your son each day to make sure he's not mixed up something essential. This will be easy because you'll have a login and you can see what he did that day and how he scored on his daily work.

 

Yes, whatever we use, I have no illusions that he will be able to do it independently. Which I dread. But if I can keep from having to do ALL of it with him, that would be really nice.

[fairfarmhand]

I've found most of the teachers to be pretty responsive. However, there are a few that just seem to never respond to messages. So, in this case, I have my kids either phone them with the provided phone number, I email the teacher, or I email the homeroom teacher. Sometimes, with certain teachers it's a hassle to get a response and you just have to keep on nagging.

[amo_mea_filiis.]

Mine are in commonwealth charter academy (split from connections), and both have IEPs.

 

Are you looking at the public or private version? If private, I have no idea about differences. We're public.

 

The lower grades have been terrible in communication and follow up.

 

It takes forever to get things fixed in ds's iep. I've found that his meetings need to be face to face. He's complex, and needs curriculum outside of CCA's standard stuff.

 

My 11th grader just qualified for an iep, and they've been awesome! Even giving some support during elective summer school which is not at all required.

 

She doesn't need any curriculum changes, just serious behavior motivation. I can't yet speak to the effectiveness of her iep since it starts in the fall, but it looks good on paper.