On-line school for high school seniors - any experience?

In my experience, online classes *are the easy way out. They do not offer much rigor at all. But, they are better than nothing, so if your child is choosing online versus dropping out due to anxiety, then online is the way to go.

A couple of examples - at my former school the teacher next door to me "taught" an online class. It was through our state's department of education and she had students from all around the state in her online class. She never taught the class before, had never taken a college or even high school course in the subject. She knew nothing about the material. But since her role as an online teacher was more of a moderator/facilitator, she did not need to know anything. The students took online tests (set up so they could use their notes) and completed projects. The projects were graded according to a rubric that was so general that a teacher like my colleague, who knew nothing about the topics, could grade them.

I currently have four students whose parents frequently email me about their grades. The parents do not understand how their kids could have C's when they got A's in the online pre-requisite last year. I don't have an answer because I don't understand how the system can do that either.

I had one student last year, a freshman, that was taking an online AP course. She was barely passing my class yet had a high A in the AP class.

Some kids are going to be academically successful no matter what. They'll get an A in every class. Having them take easy online classes won't set them back much because they can rise to any challenge down the road. Some kids really need a strong foundation in classes to be prepared for the next level. If you believe your daughter can be successful in college regardless of her courses next year, I say go for what will cause the least amount of anxiety.

I totally disagree. As a parent that had her kids in public school through 7th grade and then homeschooled 8th and started online school with my girls in the 9th grade, online classes are not the easy way out at all. There are many, many different programs. Some kids learn better in different environments. My girls learned better at home instead of being taught to pass the state test. My girls were always on the honor roll in public school and the same for online school. Their classes were difficult, and they have thrived in college getting degrees in chemistry and forensic science and biology and computer science. Both are on the honor roll and will graduate next May. It's not that they are just always academically successful. They have had to work hard for their grades. They were completely prepared for college whereas a lot of their friends that graduated with honors from public school were not and are barely passing. Several have dropped out of college. There are pros and cons of both sides. One is not better than the other they are just different, and you have to find what works best for your child.

My daughter actually works in enrollment for online schools.. I just messaged her and they do enrollment for Massachusetts Virtual Academy, you can call 866-968-7512 and get more info. Her name is Julie,but there's no way for you to request her or anything just depends on who answers, . I texted her and asked if MA was one of the states that has free online schooling and she said yes.

btw I hope my posting that above info is ok, I don't benefit from it at all just passing along info

btw whoever above said that it was a *way out* is just wrong, these schools are as hard as you want them to be with honors classes and AP classes.. slackers are slackers either way.

I taught online high school (as well as I teach full time gen ed) and have had my daughter take 2 online classes. Online high school failure rates are quite high especially when a district has them outsourced to "big" schools with out of area teachers. In my daughter's case, PE was handled by a local teacher and it was just fine and a good way for her to avoid her anxiety about undressing in front of other girls which I personally think should be outlawed.


I taught Algebra, Geometry and Advanced Algebra online and can tell you that if there was no local teacher and I did not have the freedom to amend the online course so it mirrored the content and amount of work required in the regular classroom, everyone would have failed. Some crazy person puts together a ridiculous amount of work and them farms it out to schools as a package. Awful! Even then, at least one third of the students have a very hard time self motivating.

Failure rates in large online schools such as K12 are over 50% but they try to bury it.

My daughter took sophomore English through her district/"K12" and the amount of work required was easily over 300 hours where a regular semester class would be closer to 120 total hours (90 classroom + 30 homework). She has taken English before and since and each course might have 2-4 smaller essays and 2-3 big essays. This one had 20 long writing assignment and projects. Each "assignment" had 4 document that needed to be read to understand the assignment. (From the lesson, a  detailed rubric, a sample with comments, and a 2 page description).  It was crazy!  I also think some of the online classes make it too easy to get a D/C but extremely difficult to get and A.  Also the tests and quizzed were very poorly written and contradicted each other.

I would not let my daughter take online school full time for sure unless she was one of those extremely rare highly motivated students.

Since I teach high school I have multiple English teachers around me and they were aghast when I showed them the workload.

My BFF's daughter went to public school for 9th and 10th, but hated all of the cliques and social BS involved so she did the online option for 11th and 12th. She loved it. I believe she also took advantage of dual credit community college classes during that time and knocked out quite a few college prerequisites so it definitely wasn't an easy way out. This girl is very smart and very self motivated so it was no surprise that she did well with that kind of a system. The experience set her up to do well in college where students have to be self motivated.

Florida has changed the rules for graduation recently and it now includes a requirement for taking at least one on line class through the state's on-line school system. There is no cost to the family as it is consider an alternative to public school. From what I have seen, the classes are like any other-with good and bad teachers, easy and difficult assignments, etc. 

I think the key is finding the 'school' that works for your child and that it is fully accredited. 

I would also encourage you to consider looking into college courses at the local community college. In my state the costs (including books and fees) are completely covered by the state and the kids come out with college course work as well as credit towards high school. My son will graduate from high school with all of his basic course work completed. His girlfriend is only a couple of classes shy of her AA. Our local CC has an actual dual enrollment high school affiliated with it-students go into it as juniors in high school and graduate with both their high school degree and an AA.