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Does anybody have any experience with Connections Academy for PG kids?

Thanks

I do not have any experience, but it has been discussed here before. A quick search came up with this thread, and there are others:
Connections Academy discussion

No experience here, but I've looked into it for my kid. Bear in mind that unless you're doing NCA (the private school option, which costs money) or independent study (which costs money), the program you'll be in is technically a public school, and you'll be bound by the public school rules. So when I asked whether we could reverse DD's grade skip and just accelerate for all core subjects, the answer was the same "no" that is our local public school's answer. But of the 3 online public school programs (other two are K12 and Calvert) in my state, it was the one I liked best.

The answers to my questions, which were asked of a national CA person, were all routed back to the local principal for answering, which leads me to believe that there are few specific answers that are both not covered on the CA website and still true nationwide.

I saw that the program touted curriculum compaction to bring struggling kids up to grade level, and asked whether that option was also available for kids working at or above grade level. The response was, "could you clarify what you mean by that." So in my state, I believe that they are not accustomed to working with PG kids.

OTOH, they offer multiple foreign languages starting in elementary (compared to 2 semesters of middle-school Spanish, which you aren't allowed to take in consecutive semesters, for our local public school). And pre-algebra in 6th / Algebra 1 in 7th, compared to Algebra 1 in 8th in our local public school.

Like one of the posters in the thread st pauli girl linked to, I have serious concerns about doing "lab" science in a virtual lab. That said, the only thing I learned in my high school lab sciences was to get someone else to do the actual hands-on work while I did the write-up. The sample geometry lesson was far more comprehensive (both in terms of explaining multiple ways, and in requiring proofs) than what I had in high school.

If my kid had a baby in high school, I'd put her in that program rather than the local public school's (apparently very good) school for teenage mothers. If we end up getting redistricted out of our elementary (which is conveniently-located and has excellent teachers and administrators) next year, I'd seriously consider giving it a try for 5th next year. Barring either of those happening, I do not think it would be my first choice, over our local public middle school. But I would likely give it a try before we went with either of the private schools that I think have the best potential to be a good fit, and I would consider it to be a better option than an additional grade skip if boredom were an issue.

DD's current school issues are primarily social; she's quite isolated (IMHO due nearly entirely to her own unwillingness to initiate interactions even with close friends). I'd also consider CA as an option to give her a break from social issues until she's interested in figuring out how to deal with people. I don't think it's doing her any favors to get herself labeled as weird and antisocial going into middle school; that's a hard tag to shake. Whereas coming in as "the new kid" in a few years does give you more opportunity to reinvent yourself.

We are looking into CA and K12 in our state for their virtual program to ease into the homeschooling mode with our oldest DS8 next year as he starts 5th grade. CA does have gifted classes, but it varies by state as to who they accept into it from what I'm told. I know here in LA, you must have already had a gifted iep designation from a public/private school before they allow you into the gifted program in the virtual school (we had to sent them the proof).
I personally like the CA programs a bit better than the k12, mostly for the elective offers and language, plus clubs ( I have a social kid and he LOVES the interactive anything whether in person or on the computer ). I have heard that CA's courses are harder and take more effort than K12 from parents whose kids have struggled after being enrolled but I am not going in expecting that for my son...I would welcome a challenge for him for a change!
However, as of yesterday I am now looking at the differences between their public school offering and their private because we may be moving to a different country start of next school year (little surprise from the military yesterday). Our DS is PG and the public school system is just not a good fit for him so we are getting our feet wet with hopefully CA, but possibly k12 depending on state limits/or tuition or both!

Run. Run FAAAAAAR away from this program (and K12, too, which is all too similar).

Seriously.

The assessment piece of things is fatally flawed, and national C&I doesn't even understand the problem, much less have any intention of remediating it.

Cloze and Student-Choice formal assessment at a rate of >75% of the of the course assessments is flatly NOT appropriate for anyone at a secondary level, nevermind divergent thinking GT students, and when those assessments don't even follow best practices for average learners, they are *nightmarish* for gifties.

Our LOCAL administrators, counselors, and teachers have been fantastic to work with (with a couple of notable exceptions). They have been willing to do highly customized, unique scheduling and basically listen beautifully to what we have to say to them. Unfortunately, they can't do a darned thing about what Baltimore hands down to them in the way of system changes and edicts from on-high, often with no communication or reason for changes. Example: Assessments MUST be taken one at a time (really?? three multiple choice questions and I can't staple four of these suckers together to cover half a chapter of social studies at once??) and in order. (I've fought that one and won, but I shouldn't have needed to, YK?)

Similarly, there is now a push to eliminate textbooks and all off-line materials. This *is* happening. There are also initiatives in rollout that are going to eventually prohibit students or parents from printing either text excerpts (from online, or iTexts) or any assessments at all. Sorry, but that isn't working for us, and I have very sound reasons, given the mind-numbing things that I've seen in the assessments from corporate over the years.

C&I simply doesn't care, and the problems have become worse and worse with each passing year. They give lip service to 'academic integrity' and all, but there is also a widespread culture of encouraging teachers to let "struggling" students RE-TAKE assessments for additional credit. This entire concept blows my mind. First, is this a performance assessment? Or is it a formative one? If the latter, then why is it contributing in an absolute (quantitative) manner to a student's grades in the first place?? Is it intended to be norm-referenced? Or criterion referenced?? NO? (And trust, me, the answer is VERY clearly no. HA.)

Well then what the heck is any particular multiple choice, four question "quiz" supposed to do?

They do NOT understand that "MOS" isn't a differentiation technique. Truly-- their idea of GT math involves giving students more numerous homework problems nightly, and asks them to sit through basic instruction with struggling classmates (or offers them none at all since they "don't need extra help"-- yeah, don't need extra help to pass NCLB tests). (AUghh)

GT offerings are dressed up versions of regular courses, including all-online curricular materials, infrequent instructional support from teachers whose instructional ratios may exceed 200:1, and most teachers have NO clue how to differentiate for even moderately gifted children.

We've been enrolled with them for 6 years, and this is likely to be our last. NO way could I recommend them for anything beyond 8th grade, and even then, only with some caveats.

There is one (and only one) genuine offering in terms of differentiated instruction-- the Great Books literature elective for GT 3-8. In the hands of a capable and enthusiastic teacher, this course is fantastic and very definitely follows all the best practices for both the medium (distance, e-learning) and for gifted ed (open-ended, discussion with peers, higher order learning vis a vis Bloom's Taxonomy, etc.).

Unfortunately, all that seems to do is to make the deficits in the other instructional content that much more glaring by comparison.

My daughter's 9th grade English texts were about 40% rehashings of JGB short-story selections, but at lower levels of Bloom's taxonomy. Yes, "honors" level English.

You'd think that someone would have noticed that before several thousand English students experienced such a profound let-down as eager and highly capable high schoolers, wouldn't you?

That's typical of C&I with Connections.

There are excellent on-line providers. They are university-affiliated, and most are NOT-FOR-PROFIT. That's not intended to be a political statement, by the way. I don't necessarily have any skin in the game in terms of liking/disliking privatization. But I've seen firsthand what happens when a corporation runs a school. It's NOT pretty, and it most definitely is not about what students need, even on average, nevermind special educational niche groups like PG children. This program, with its right/wrong/all-or-nothing assessments (mostly Trivial Pursuit taken directly from reading) FUELS perfectionism. BIG-TIME.

Oh-- Math program is entirely Pearson. ENvision (for K~4?) has plenty of critics, let me just say.

The flexibility of the program basically means radical acceleration. Compacting is only viable from K-6, and it is NOT encouraged. My DD came in as a 3rd grader and was accelerated one more grade after that. Average learners (and moderately gifted kids, for that matter) find this program VERY challenging... PG kids find it (mostly) annoying, barring the occasional good teacher who makes it come alive. (To be fair, my daughter has had about four of those in her slate of ~15 teachers.)

Feel free to PM if you want to get specifics about anything you're curious about-- I've been around the system both as a parent and I've got some insider insights beyond that.

CA has used me and my family for six years as their poster children and lapdogs. Well, doggy's collar is a wee bit too tight this year and I. am. CRANKY.

Connections Academy (2E)Connections Academy (2E)[/url]


This is another older thread. Note that my post there was after grades 3-8 (with the program as it once was).

Those experiences were mostly good. The post above is in our second year in the high school program, and with significant changes from our corporate overlords this year after Pearson's acquisition in August.

Would I still do it for a K through 6th grader? Oh, probably. It's definitely superior for a PG kiddo when compared with local B&M enrollment in an undifferentiated environment, if only because your time is your own once you're done.

My daughter has done the "club" thing with Connections. It's highly over-rated, let's just say. She enjoyed Chess. She loved debate. But the other stuff? Meh.

She's an NJHS officer, though-- and that is the real deal.

With a cooperative local administration that is WILLING to do some end-runs around Baltimore, Connections is perfectly viable as an option for a PG elementary or middle schooler. Just recognize that if you don't have an over-achiever, authority-pleaser type of kid, you may be in for some battles royale. Much of the "work" is boring drivel, just like in B&M. Much of it is aimed at NCLB testing, and being PG doesn't exempt you from having to put in weekly time on their stupid test-prep software. Dumb, dumb, dumb-- but good luck getting anyone to listen to you.

Also-- be prepared for serious pushback about actual GRADE PLACEMENT changes. Much of the touted flexibility is a mirage.

After my DD (then 7) polished off the 4th grade curriculum by Christmas, we cooled our heels for nearly seven weeks WAITING for Baltimore to figure out that my kid really was waiting to do 5th grade, too, and that our local administrators and teachers really did think this was a good idea.

There were also limits on electives in elementary, last I heard (6th grade) whereby you could only take TWO, and even so, only one of them could be a foreign language, etc. Again, for a PG child, this is a ridiculous and completely arbitrary limitation. As I noted above, the JGB program is like a dream come true for a lot of MG+ kids. It's terrific, at least in the hands of a teacher that understands GT learners.

There is reluctance to grant high school credit for high school coursework taken in middle school. We had to fight this one HARD. It's worth fighting, too, because in many states, those courses are specified by the state ("Algebra 1") for high school graduation. Not "Algebra 1 or higher math."

Baltimore's administrators are PG skeptics. Truly. They like using us as poster families, but deep down, they doubt that it's really our kids doing the work.

I know several PG families that use Laurel Springs and are very happy with it. Check out their website.

That's interesting to hear, Shari-- do you have any more detail about what they like about it (and don't)?

I looked very carefully at Laurel Springs only a couple of months ago, but it raised some of the exact same red flags that I've learned to be wary of with Connections' marketing--

"self-paced" and "flexible" but at the same time "synchronous instruction" and "collaborative"

I liked what I saw of their science offerings in secondary, but all of it seemed to be a la carte (and at additional expense).

The expense seemed really high given my misgivings, but maybe that is because of some of what I've learned via being with a virtual school.

I'm curious to know what kinds of learners are successful (or less pleased) with particular on-line programs and why.

We started Laurel Springs Academy for the Gifted and Talented in September and have been very happy with it. My kids are gifted 7th and 8th graders but not PG across the board, just so you know -- tested into Johns Hopkins CTY High Honors, so no slouches here, but more like 98/99 percentile not 99.9 percentile.

Be sure to distinguish between "regular" Laurel Springs, which is cheaper, and Laurel Springs Academy, which is a bit more expensive but still a bargain compared to private school. The Academy really is dedicated to GT learning, and they are extremely flexible. Academy kids are a separate group; they have their own gatherings and online discussions, and they are entitled to 100% customization of courses.

It's also important, though, to realize that the school will do some of the customization, but parents have to be right in there. We have liked and respected all the teachers, but like all human beings, they vary. We still do a lot of hands-on teaching ourselves, but it is great to have the curriculum set for us.

It's also important to realize that Laurel Springs Academy for GT kids basically follows two strategies: acceleration (your child takes whatever classes they're ready for) and independent study (you can pull out the curricular "guts" of a course and turn it into a rigorous independent study if you like; you do have to show the school that your proposed program is appropriate). These are GREAT strategies for my DD. She is taking 9th grade Honors English, 9th grade Algebra, and high-school French as a 7th grader. Some of these are very much standard courses -- we have chosen not to customize much as we get our feet wet this first year -- using Prentice-Hall type coursebooks. But the content is rigorous, and the English course, to LS's credit, is entirely good original literature, not a textbook (Romeo and Juliet, the Odyssey, and Wuthering Heights).

The kids do a TON of writing and very little standardized-test-type multiple choice or Cloze testing (in the Honors classes, so far, ZERO). They also write a bunch of longer essays (roughly 4-6 per semester @ 1,500 words each) and an "Academy Project," which is a year-long research project, driven by the child.