Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments easy online school options

Any one have any experience with any comprehensive online school options? We are on the verge of taking our 9 year-old daughter out of school but for a variety of reasons can't devote much time to homeschooling at the moment.

She loves learning and is really independent. I am dreaming of some 90-120 minute long online program that covers the basics quickly but lets her move at her own pace so she could do two years or more in a year if needed. She is highly gifted and is years ahead in most subjects so she almost doesn't need anything, but I think for transition purposes, her own self-discipline and my own worry about her missing stuff, something structured online would be great.

I have been reading about Laurel Springs, Connections Academy, k12, and Oak Meadow. Any feedback on these with a gifted kid? I don't have a clear sense on how they work exactly. Are there any others I am missing? Thank you!

I don't have any personal experience with a comprehensive program, but I have heard and read that these rarely work well for gifted kids.

Some states allow you to do K12 (and maybe others) for free. If that's possible in your state, you can always sign up and see how it goes.

k12....I did it years ago (so it might have changed in the years since we stopped). We did 1st (full load), 2nd (full load), and two classes for 3rd. Um, they expect parent to teach every lesson. Maybe for a nine year old there would be less parent led instruction. My son was 6-8 years old. If you get it for free as part of a charter situation there is tons of bs (bureaucratic stuff) as far as pace and acceleration. If you pay for it you can do what you want with no assigned teacher looking over your shoulder. I don't know. You would want to investigate thoroughly if it was what you are looking for.

Yes. Connections and K12 are both free as charter schools in some locations.

Honestly-- NO WAY would I pay for either one.

Also honestly...

these are a TON of work in some ways, and almost all of it the wrong kind for HG students. You'll be very unpleasantly surprised by how much time such programs can suck out of a week.

While it was always possible for my DD15 (who was with one of these programs for some 8+ years) to do her entire days' work in about 2-3hr at most, and an entire weeks' worth in about 8-15, that seldom is how it went.

Here's how it ACTUALLY went:

Mom: Do you know what you need to do today?

DD: sure. It's on my {online planner}.

Mom: We talked about this-- what I mean is-- do you understand that I want you to also do {schedule tweak} today?

DD: {sulky look} I don't see why I should do ____. [Side note here-- this often was UNSTATED, which was worse-- because what followed was related]

---

A bit later:

Mom: A game? You must be all done, then.

DD: Yes. [What she ACTUALLY meant by this statement is that she had done all that she intended to do.]

Mom: {checking work completed} DD!! What are you THINKING?? You have NOT done what we talked about, and you're ________ lessons/weeks behind in {class}, too. What on earth are you doing??

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Most HG kids' asynchronous arcs mean that they'll need MORE oversight with a system like this-- not less-- because the work is not necessarily appropriate (a lot of it is busy-work or lowest levels of Bloom's upon assessments, which are mostly poorly written to mediocre multiple-choice items), and requires a profile of relatively even academic readiness a bit beyond grade level, and executive function WAY beyond it.

If that isn't your kid, just know that you'll be doing all of the scaffolding (and, quite frankly, whipping them to do things that they aren't intrinsically motivated to do, and which YOU may also feel are rather pointless). Meaning-- redirection, making sure that your kid isn't roaming the internet, hacking your network, or visiting 4CHAN. Making sure that they are... writing a fake "journal" or doing an "artsy" project related to a literature selection, homework problems for math that will never be graded-- or even SEEN-- by anyone, etc. etc.

On the plus side, the kids who come out in the top 1% of their graduating classes do VERY well in college, and they often wind up in science or engineering-- particularly in computer science, which they find pretty easy. DD met an amazing cohort of other HG-to-EG/PG students in her classes, and the only way that those kids would ever have met others like themselves was through this kind of program, given the state of GT ed in my state. The top 5 graduating seniors in DD's class were academically all complete rock stars. You do remain pretty involved with your kids in a program like this, so that is a plus.


Connections does have some middle school programs that are truly GT. Their literature elective in gr3-8 is amazing in the hands of a great teacher. But the entire system does tend to grind the good educators into dust pretty relentlessly, and student-teacher ratios frequently exceed 100 to 1.

DD had AP math coursework from a teacher whose English communication skills were... limited... and the best advice that she got from this person when she called with questions?

{with ambient noise from the cross-town commuter train} You know Google?

I am truly not kidding. That was it. Google it. Occasionally-- "You Tube has good instructions."

Teacher involvement and oversight is minimal at the secondary level... and nonexistent at the primary one. Middle school Gr7+8 were easily the best years that we spent with Connections-- and I've posted at length about it here. I'm not the only one here who tried Connections with a PG kid, by the way.

I will say that with a good local administration behind you, one that KNOWS what your child is and is interested in knowing WHO s/he is, too, it can be done. National, on the other hand, simply doesn't really 'get' that HG+ kids exist; we faced push-back at EVERY stage of things from Baltimore. Once Pearson bought Connections, there was an immediate deterioration in response and quality from on-high, as well.

The credentialing made a lot of the pain worth it in the end, but there was pain aplenty. I'm not sure that I would do Connections now.

Ditto, I wouldn't use K12 for any student. Its a terrible company and product.

We had an early experience with K12 (the public version) that completely turned DD off to homeschooling.

So for all the reasons HK suggests, I don't think online school is "easy." We did K12 at late elementary stages, for English and history. It was fine, grade-level stuff, and mostly (as HK says) bottom-level Bloom's comprehension questions and literal fact recall. But we supplemented, and it was OK.

We have done Laurel Springs School since 7th grade. The key distinction is between "regular" and "gifted" LSS. The basic course access is the same, but the level of teaching, customization, and service is higher with the "gifted" branch: there is a small group of really excellent gifted teachers who "get" gifted kids, so we have repeat teachers if we like, and their course loads seem to be manageable. Gifties seem to be a niche clientele for LSS, which has a number of clienteles including actors, athletes, and kids wanting acceleration/enrichment. The teachers are always helpful and usually quite rigorous. They are more than willing to enrich and customize to areas of strength.

LSS is not an "easy" option, though. The courses typically don't use much multi-choice, at least if you choose the textbook options, which we do. (Be an educated consumer for the "online" ones, which vary from GREAT when they're constructed in-house by LSS teachers to AWFUL when they're purchased from vendors like K-12.) Instead, the (non-vendor, good) courses are VERY writing-intensive. This has been a great fit for one DC, who loves to write and is very much a read, write, and learn thinker. Another DC finds it less congenial and a ton of work, since that DC is more of a discuss, do a project, and experiential learner. But even my reading- and writing- oriented DC finds that the workload is significant. Think two chapters of an AP-level textbook in, say, Honors History PLUS two essays (at much higher levels of Bloom's) per week.

So, we have found that our DC at LSS does way more writing than even "good" private schools around here -- granted, DC is also accelerated 2 grades in humanities. But in English, since 7th grade, he's written something on the order of 2,000-3,000 (analytic) words per week plus, in addition, ten 2,000+ word analytic essays on literature in each course.

To give another example, the Honors (not AP) Biology course uses the Audesirk textbook, which is a college text, and does AP Bio labs. NOT easy by any means. And the parent is the teacher. The teachers are GREAT, but they are supervisors and graders, not day-to-day, hands-on teachers. How could they be?

We have been less high on the math curricula. But I think that's endemic to modern education and not an LSS thing.