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Isn’t there a homeschool provider who still does Distance Learning? NOT online ?


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So my dd doesn’t do well with online classes and I’m trying to find something for the next few years that works for us. 

is there a provider that has a full selection of high school classes via distance learning where she will receive a textbook, schedule, clear self teaching instructions and not a lot of confusion and guesswork? 

We used Calvert when the kids were little (the old Calvert where you got their original package and teachers manusals all printed) 

We would probably need 

Us Gov, Economics, and a few electives 

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Texas Tech does an online hybrid.  Almost all of the work is offline with a textbook, (but they were switching some to E-textbooks) and all work is uploaded into a portal on their site, where you also find the assignments, learning aids (videos, teacher messages), and a message board system utilized in some classes.  They are self-paced, though, so there are no live classes.

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I've used American School of Correspondence. Ds used them for just about everything freshman year. It was a bit boring, but it got the job done, so now we just use it for specific subjects. They have different options. Ds did the full correspondence - do all the work at home out of textbooks, mail in the tests and wait for tests to be graded and mailed back. Dd now uses it and uses the online test option - does all the work at home out of textbooks, takes tests online, and receives grade immediately for majority of test, waiting a day or two for grading of short answer portion. My youngest ds is using the full online option for an 8th grade science course, and we really don't like that at all. I had wanted him to do the textbook with online tests, but they didn't have that option for this course. In our experience, that works the best.

The only thing that American School doesn't have, that you are looking for, is scheduling. They send you the books with the daily questions and answer key for the child to self-correct, and all test grading is done by the school, but the child is left to work at their own pace. I actually work out a schedule at the beginning of the school year, just dividing the number of assignments by the number of school days and writing out what needs to be accomplished each day to finish by the end of the school year. American School gives the kids a full 12 months to complete the course, though, so if you get behind, you're okay.

Hope that helps.

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@Calming Tea   it sounds like you are not interested in enrolling, and getting a Diploma,  but in a few courses?  I believe that you can do that with TTU K12 (formerly TTUISD) as a "Supplemental" student, which is easier and eliminates some State of Texas mandatory testing, if an End of Course exam is required for a particular course. I think there are five (5) courses that require EOC exams now? (Previously there were 15 courses that required EOC exams?)  

I mentioned your thread to my DD. The big thing we must mention, as Mazakaal did upthread about American School is that THERE IS NO SCHEDULING.   For a semester course, they allow a maximum of 6 months to complete it.  

The TIME MANAGEMENT and SCHEDULING would need to be done by your student.

My DD took U.S. Government and at the moment she is taking Economics, 2 of the courses you mentioned.

Everything is Asynchronous so the work can be done at any hour your student wants to do it.

I believe that many or most of the High School courses have been converted to eBooks, but not all of them. That has IMO "pros and cons" but for us, overseas, it is a plus, because there are no delays for Shipping and we don't need to pay for Shipping.

Their High School courses (at a minimum the Core courses) are NCAA approved.

Note: If you want a Final Grade, the Final Examination counts for 25% of the semester grade and must be supervised by a Proctor they have approved. And, the Final Examination must be passed.

The course information and instruction is in the Online platform. For years, they used the "Moodle" platform, but I believe a year or 2 ago they switched to "Blackboard" or some other platform.

My DD said that usually if she has a question or confusion, and she sends a message to the instructor, they answer the next day, especially for courses that are not Electives. She said with an Elective course, it has at times taken longer for them to reply.

The courses begin at the front of the textbook and go to the back of the textbook, which I believe would be impossible in a brick and mortar school using the same textbook, where they simply don't have enough time.

I think the eBook for the Economics course was $17.50.   I remember one for a Math course that was a lot more than that, but that's for a 2 semester course and was far less expensive than the Hard Copy of that same textbook would be.  I think the High School Math courses were the first ones they converted to eBooks?

I believe the university admissions people are interested in "rigor" among many other things when they consider an applicant. Of the 3 universities DD has been accepted to, as of this writing, UNC Chapel Hill is the highest one on the usnews lists and we are OOS, which is tough at Carolina.

HTH and good luck to your DD. 

 

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Seton Home Study.  It's Catholic, but no nonsense, straight to the point.  Clear syllabus, tests, expectations right out of the gate.  Ds used this for geography, history for 10th grade. Dd completed her 9th grade year using the complete curriculum, although she did choose to take the math tests online (instant feedback).  

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3 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

If Kolbe is too Catholic for you, Seton will never work. I am a very orthodox Catholic, and I dislike Seton. 😉 

 

Oh darn.  I grew up Catholic and though we attend Baptist churches I'm very understanding of and supportive of the Catholic church (unlike most Baptists!LOL) ...but if it's in every single lesson that would be a bit odd for my dd, having not grown up Catholic.  She loves going to Mass with her grandparents and enjoys the more traditional and liturgical setting so she'd actually like a few things thrown in, but I'm pretty sure what I saw of Kolbe would be overkill....

Thanks for the heads up!!

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8 minutes ago, Calming Tea said:

 

Oh darn.  I grew up Catholic and though we attend Baptist churches I'm very understanding of and supportive of the Catholic church (unlike most Baptists!LOL) ...but if it's in every single lesson that would be a bit odd for my dd, having not grown up Catholic.  She loves going to Mass with her grandparents and enjoys the more traditional and liturgical setting so she'd actually like a few things thrown in, but I'm pretty sure what I saw of Kolbe would be overkill....

Thanks for the heads up!!

I have never seen Kolbe's govt course, but most of their courses use supplemental materials for Catholic teachings and those would be easy to drop out of the course without impacting the course integrity. I was surprised by your comment (but the govt course might be different.) Seton, otoh, uses texts and presents history in a way that I personally view as unbalanced. I would rather teach my kids a broader range of perspectives than a singular POV.

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2 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

I have never seen Kolbe's govt course, but most of their courses use supplemental materials for Catholic teachings and those would be easy to drop out of the course without impacting the course integrity. I was surprised by your comment (but the govt course might be different.) Seton, otoh, uses texts and presents history in a way that I personally view as unbalanced. I would rather teach my kids a broader range of perspectives than a singular POV.

 

For Kolbe I didn't find the sample for the gov course, but the way it spoke was that the entire course was imbued with the Catholic teachings/history etc.  I will look again.  Although we wanted to sign her up for the grading or the Self Paced Plus is what I think they call it, so I think she would have to do the course their way, for hte most part...

Maybe I should just use AOP Academy single-subject plan....she likes using Monarch even though it's boring as heck, but she likes the system.  I just need to not be the go-to because she really needs more outside accountability and we have communication issues.

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FYI I tried the demo from AOP Academy.  AWFUL- it purposefully kicks you out after about 20 seconds from each demo page.  and each demo of each course includes exactly one page, so you can't gauge how in depth it is.  Additionally, they had no answer for sending samples of teacher feedback.  They were very professional but the demo itself was so frustrating.  From the 20 seconds we saw of each page, it looks like it's not any better-written than their Monarch, but each lesson is longer and has more information overall. So, not excited.  Monarch is kind of poorly written, and very dead and uninteresting, to say the least.  So just making that longer sounds pretty awful to us.

Back to the drawing board!

I think Seton and Kolbe are too Catholic for us...

Will be calling American School for samples and looking at BJU

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 3/12/2019 at 2:59 PM, Calming Tea said:

I think Seton and Kolbe are too Catholic for us... 

 

With Kolbe, if you do the distance learning approach, you can skip all Catholic content if you want to. I did that with one child who was in a very anti-religion phase of her life. The other was fine with online classes.

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