K12 ???? Virtual home schooling?

Question

I am in the process of enrolling my son in WAVA K12 for the 8th grade. Any good experiences or bad? Or anything I should know?

thx

Answer 1

I had one of my four children enrolled in Arkansas' virtual  from 4th to 7th grade. He adores anything related to computers, so it was a perfect fit. The rest of the kids were homeschooled traditionally and this is our 15th year homeschooling - with one now graduated to college. I found ARVS (now ARVA) to be very easy to work with. I imagine WAVA will be similar. The K12 curriculum is very good overall. My son that was in ARVS is now schooling online via Virtual Homeschool Group because ARVS doesn't go beyond 8th grade here and he was already topping out on the pre-high school level class options.

Experience - K12 curriculum: excellent language arts, science, and history! My son loved it and he scored out the roof. All three of these were very interesting, varied in activities to reinforce learning, and had fantastic content.  

I wasn't as impressed with the math (they use another publisher's currciulum), but my son still scored fine. The music wasn't a big hit here. We were saddled with levels that seemed too babyish for my son's age. In 4th grade the assignments had him doing little dancish body motions to the songs. Perfect for kindergarteners who love to wiggle, but very embarrassing to a 4th grade boy. We dropped those. It had excellent voice training though. Attempts at an instrument were a waste two years ago. I was so excited when they sent a recorder thinking that my son would learn the instrument by the end of the year. All that was done was one unit and about 4 notes with it. sigh. Last year's music was a big hit though. It came with Music Ace and some very enjoyable CDS to learn the life stories and music of famous composers.

Working with the state ARVS - I had very good experiences working with ARVS staff. Staff teachers do not directly teach. They support the teaching parent. We had a different support teacher each of the four years. Some support teachers became good friends, some were excellent at finding great resources, some made me feel like the best mom in the state (LOL). Many of the support teachers were homeschoolers themselves. None made me feel uncomfortable.

I did not like the state testing we had to do. As homeschoolers we would only have had to take the IOWA test. As a virtual student, by state law, my son had to take the Benchmark in addition to the IOWA just like any public school student since that is his classification with this program. Last year, 7th grade, it was a total of 8 days of testing counting both tests. That is just too much in my opinion. The Benchmark only gave scores in four categories (below basic, basic, proficient, and advanced). There were no details so that I could use the tests presecriptively, unlike the IOWA. It felt like a big waste of our time. Only just this week did I get his scores from last March's Benchmark (we got the IOWA scores within a month or two of the test). Too long taking the test, too long getting the results, and results that tell you so little you cannot work prescriptively with them. But, it is Arkansas state law if your child is classified as public. I don't know how Washington does their state level testing.

So, in summary, We had an overall positive experience those four years. I would recommend giving it a try for a year to see if you enjoy it. If you find that you love the curriculum, but hate working with WAVA, use the time to save up to buy it as an independent homeschooler. If you decide to skip both, stop on in to the Virtual Homeschool Group and take a look around. VHSG is at http://www.virtualhomeschoolgroup.com/. We are homeschooling moms getting together to offer free online classes for each other's families - an online course co-op.

Answer 2

My son is at OHVA using k12 ( 7th grade ) and so far he is doing GREAT !! The work is very easy to follow and the curriculum is excellent. I have used many others and by far this is the best I have found.

My son finished the 8th grade in public school with straight F's and went from that to straight A's and B's being home schooled. Online charter schools are considered the same as public schooling. My son graduated an online charter school and now attends University of Dayton ( a private university ) with scholarships.

Home schooling can work for some. The student needs to be self disciplined enough to do the work and care. Generally less work is involved with an online charter school than in a regular public school. You are also able to work at your own pace. k12 will customize your curriculum and make sure you are where you need to be.

They will provide you with the computer, printer, supplies and books that you need as well as teachers and academic advisors. This is the same as a public school but ONLINE at home. They will also provide you with teacher to help you by phone and email. They will also help you with any state required testing that needs to be done as well as proficiencies.

If you need anything else feel free to email me

Answer 3

There is a WAVA Yahoo Group, as well as a huge K12 Users Yahoo Group.  I recommend joining them for info.  Each K12 VA/VSP works differently, so talking with other WAVA parents will help the most.

Here is the K12 Users group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/k12users/

And WAVA:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WAVA/

We've used K12 for over 5 years as independent HS'ers and LOVE it!