Connections AcademyReviews 564

I enrolled my child in the middle of last year and at first thought it was a great alternative. Within a few weeks however I saw a massive slip in her grades and she was placed on "academic probation". Basically it's a span of span where you struggle to pull up an grade that is considered failing and as the time I think you were only allotted two or three. Regardless, she managed to pull up the grades even got a message from the adviser that they had placed her with and yet the day the probation was up one grade slipped and she was placed back on which I felt was completely unfair, but it didn't matter.

Flash forward to the current school year. We are approaching the one month mark and already I'm seeing the same slip in grades. I have seen many mentions of the workload and I can attest to the fact that it is a bit crazy. The first week of school we had a research paper due as well as two portfolios, one of which was a slide show that took us two and a half hours between looking up information and putting together.

My final straw was when I received a call on the 31st from the Algebra teacher accusing my child of cheating. She first called my child who was very upset that this woman was accusing her of copying and pasting answers from a website. Told her multiple times that she knew for a fact she had gotten them from a website then when this teacher called me told me that the accusation was do to the time it took her to complete the quiz...

In the span of Friday to Tuesday my student went from being on track to being in alarm and was placed once again on academic probation. I filled out the withdraw form yesterday.

They give you a shocking amount of work everyday. All day long you will be working, and its so boring. The system itself is very complex and confusing. I am a parent. So my child can rest, I end up finishing his work for him. I hate this school so much. It has brought me to tears many times. My child use to love History, now he hates everything about learning. We are just going to cheat I suppose. There is no other way. The live lessons are pure boring crap. Send your kid to a real school with human interaction, exercise, recess. I wish I had read the reviews first. It would be easier to make your own curriculum

This program is for independent learning online WITH THE HELP OF PARENTS and the online teachers.
The program is great for students who are FOCUSED ON EDUCATION not expecting to roll out of bed and make an A.
Home school is not for everyone.
I love it because I can go into the lessons with my child and see what activities are available and how to help.
No parent should ever depend on their kids to roll out of bed turn on computer and with little or no effort demand an A.
Not one parent confessed they were involved with the lessons they complain about.

Horrible time consuming. Many resubmitted documents stating they could not read or did not get. United organized as to all complete documents were needed. At the time of request, which cold have saved extra foot work. Anntime. Numerous on hold call transfers. Kinda gives MA an bad idea of what will it be like if student is doing the online school. Think I will pass on connections academy till they get better organized. They need a local brick office for parents to submit important documneta. Just not organized naff for me.

I love it. I've started homeschooling my eighth grader half way through the school year for multiple reasons. I understand some of the negative reviews but some of it sounds like complaining and excuses for not succeeding. Some of the work is hard and some is super easy, just like in public school. Homeschool is not supposed to be an easy way out. You can do it as long as you stay on top of your schedule and correspond with your child's teacher on a regular basis, like you would in a public school setting. You have to be organized so assignments don't pile up, and show your child the best way to navigate the system for them. If you and your child are not focused on the education, problems would arise, I''m sure of it. Now my daughter is thriving and our relationship has gotten closer because of North Carolina Connections Academy. I would would recommend to anyone.

I enrolled my my son, because of his anxiety problems. The teachers, are no help. Some of the courses are useless. The portfolio projects, are difficult for kids. I had the principle assign my son to detention on a Saturday, she stated his homeroom teacher was not able to get in contact with him. Meanwhile, he had already spoken to her. I had to email the principle, because she was trying to take his detention a step further and have him come in to the school. These people are horrible. If they think you are not doing the work, they will go in a change the attendance that you the parent put in to 0. Avoid if possible.

We enrolled our daughter half-way through her junior year because she was dealing with a lot of social anxiety at school. We thought the flexibility of Oregon Connections Academy would be beneficial for her and would allow her to work at her own pace and have some additional free time to work or volunteer. Unfortunately, our expectations were not reality. After six months, our A & B student is now receiving poor grades. She has lost motivation and doesn't really seem to care. At this point, she does the least amount required, which is essentially a lot of busy work and multiple-choice questions. Also, this is a very challenging format in which to teach or learn math. Our daughter has always done quite well in her math classes, yet she's currently failing her CA math class. My brother, who has a degree in computer science and math, attempted to assist her with her math assignments, but it didn't seem to help because she was already so far behind.

I believe the teachers are intelligent and well-intentioned; however, they are limited by the horrible interface and limitations of the online learning platform. My biggest complaint is their confusing system. I struggle to figure out what is due and when, and how she is supposed to complete her assignments. I have a graduate degree, yet it makes little sense to me. I can fully see why my daughter is struggling with this, as well. We are disappointed with her experience at Oregon Connections Academy and will be re-enrolling her at her local high school for her senior year.

On a side note, I did not find out Connection Academy is owned by Pearson Education (publishing company) until after we enrolled our daughter. All CA textbooks are from Pearson, and I recently read they've seen continued increases in revenue from these "public" schools. So, Connections Academy is essentially the K-12 equivalent of the troubled for-profit colleges.

*Sigh* Where do I begin? This school is certainly great when it comes to the quality of the courses. The material is really well done. I am done with the school so this is my little final review after being in the school for like 7 years and now finished high school. If you have sleeping issues or have issues getting up early then this school is for you. But here are the main issues of the school. The workload is huge like pretty huge. I know someone who went to a good college and she saw the workload and was shocked. I mean we are young people, we like to get out and enjoy our lives you know? And not sit at home all day doing school work. When I was in public school it was much different. Second, the math courses are not a good fit for the online school. It is very lousy on how they teach it. It is very vague which you have to result in watching YouTube videos or research the type of math or possibly having a tutor... Teachers can be very rude at times. When I was in this school I have had these panic attacks or just get anxiety when it is time for CBA's. The teachers get a bit rude when you get a single question wrong but if you get others right you still get credit and pass. Now the worst part about this school is that you can be ACCUSED of cheating when you didn't First of all, literally 99% of the students in this school or online ones in general cheat anyway. And the teachers know it. They are just in it for the money. If a student is asking a question on a website that is on the test and gets the answer from that person on that website and gets away with it, then if you actually answer the question correctly and legitly, and the teachers find that internet question, they will give you a zero for the test. That is absolutely absurd so if one actually cheated then the other gets in trouble. But of course, there is nothing you can do about it. If you have a good argument it doesn't matter. Online school sounds great in the mind, but in the end is it truly better than public?

They only want the federal funding.

The "teachers" wanted to be worshiped as the parents/learning coaches do their job apparently. My child failed and the teacher took great pleasure in him failing.

Thank God I took precautions in December so Mrs. Roy (hint hint) Biv could not power play and hold my child back a grade.

Read all the comments before enrolling your child, and don't give the school the benefit of doubt. Go to FB and see the growing movement against charter schools stealing federal money away from actual public schools who need funding.

I have been at this school for 2 years now, and I have been astounded as to the quality of general knowledge that I have gained through this school, and the general quality of the lessons, (in most cases) is very good. However, there are a few glaring problems with the system that have discouraged me from re-enrolling. The first being the scheduling system. I have seen a lot of reviews on this school claiming that the workload is too much. Typically, this is not true, and I can get by the average day getting all As on my assignments by 3 PM. Notice, however, I said average. Because of poor design of the schedule, there will be slack periods, days which I will get few to no lessons assigned to me, and then others in which I will receive up to 4 portfolios or projects to be completed within 2 days! I find that absolutely ridiculous. My second complaint is that response time from teachers is incredibly slow via the "webmail" and on occasion I find myself needing to send up to 10 messages before being responded too. Other times the teachers are simply on vacation. Lastly, this school, in general, is not for the faint of heart or weak. Assignments are hard, and the concept of self-teaching, in general, requires a great deal of self-control. I am in the same classes as around 50 other people, many of them, alongside me, have high grades and are capable of handling the workload. Others are, however, in the D's and F's, and are incredibly unhappy with the workload. That just goes to show this school is not for everyone, which makes this last thing not a complaint but a simple statement. The school isn't at fault for everything, its just designed for a certain type of person, and your child may not be that kind of person. I think that this is an incredibly good school, with a few problems, but should definitely be explored more before enrollment. If you are asking, how do I know? There are multiple programs over summer that don't require commitment, which can give a rough, but effective idea of what to be expected, these include khan academy (also a partner of connections), brain chase, and probably some others. I definitely recommend this school, for a select few people with maturity, and a willingness to work hard. If your child does not have this, you can forget about enrolling.

Honestly all these reviews confuse me switching to connexus was the best choice my mom and i could have made the teachers are so willing to help and will contact you if they have concerns and will always help you as long as you put in the effort and contact them. The fact that i can do my lessons on my schedule and still have a life during the day and working in the evening and night is always great. I can't explain how much i appreciate this school for making me interested in learning again after losing all interest in school because of bullying in brick & mortar school i really love how amazing they are.

We switched to Connections Academy in Washington State a few months ago. My kids are in 6th, 4th and 3rd. My kids love it and I love that they are home with me all day. It is a school so you do have to spend a good amount of time learning and doing assignments. People post that there is too much work but it's really not. My kids spend less time doing school work with WACA then they spend at their public school. But we do spend at least 4 to 5 hours plus reading each day doing school work. It's not laying around and being lazy kind of deal that I think some people are expecting online school might be. It's real school work that has to be done each day... Yes it is flexible... If you have something going on on Monday you can skip doing your school work that day and do extra work the other days or finish it up on the weekend. But you can't just push off the work to do when you feel like it or you will quickly get behind... That is not a good feeling. I feel like my kids can learn more doing online school. If they have a question when we are going over a lesson or want more info we can stop and look up the info or watch a video to get more details or we can simply just talk about what we are learning. This is something they can not do at public school because they have to quickly move on to the next lesson or activity. I have also read about people complaining about needing to track hours. It's very simple... you put in 6 hours each day M-F into the computer systems... It's super simple. You don't actually have a stop watch counting your time spent learning. The teachers are nice. My kids have one live lesson everyday M-F. They are required to go to at least one a week to get their teacher contact in. My kids go to all their live lessons... It's school and I want them to learn as much as possible. It's also another way to interact with the other kids. Some teachers allow more of it than others. I think the only negative for me is my daughter misses seeing her friends at school. The social part of it. We do plan on signing up for field trips next school year to get more involved with the school and meet other families. Since there are so many negative comments I just wanted to give my feedback. Connections Academy is a great school if you have the time to help your children go through the lessons and you are ready to do some work. It's not something you sign your kids up for and have them figure it out on their own...

I was considering Connections Academy for my son, but ended up deciding it was not a good fit. I had inquired information about enrolling and since then they have called me every day, sometimes twice a day, one is a recording and the other is a person, they leave minute long voice mails. They also have been sending me spam emails telling me I need to finish enrollment, even though I have emailed them now twice stating I do not wish to enroll. Clearly something is going on here that all this school cares about is having numbers, no other school has spammed my phone and email after simple inquiry. I won't recommend this school based solely on the fact that they won't stop calling and emailing me to try to convince me to enroll, they don't care about students, they care about numbers, like any other public school.

All these other kids complaining must not work a lot. I'm about 3 months ahead of everyone else in my local school because I spend a lot of time working on my lessons and work on the weekends. If you put in the time and effort, its really not that hard. Thanks to this school I'm going to be able to have an associates degree before I even graduate highschool. You just have to actually be motivated enough to do it yourself and actually spend time working ahead and you'll be fine. Since I work through everything a lot quicker, I normally do a lesson or two a day then have time to do whatever I please. If you don't put in the effort, your going to hate it but if your willing to actually work, it's a great school!

Connections Academy states that you aren't the teacher, but a "Learning Coach". A "Learning Coach" is someone that is supposed to keep the student on track, but not to teach them anything. They say the teachers and the online lessons do that. This is not entirely truthful. When your student has a question, they will come to you for help. Either because the online lesson is convoluted and doesn't actually cover the material asked in a quiz, or because they can't get real help from their so-called teacher.

There's also a designate called "Caretaker". This person (in your household) is the person that is supposedly taking care of the student's needs, such as doctor's appointments, driving to events, meals, etc. You guessed it, the "Caretaker" and "Learning Coach" are one in the same.

So, not only are you the "Learning Coach", but the "Caretaker" and much of the time the teacher.

Don't enroll your student if they struggle in any subject and need help frequently. YOU will be providing that help.

Connections Academy is fine for someone who decided they want to be a homeschooler and was needing some curriculum already planned out for them. The state testing and reporting is all taken care of, too. But don't expect to modify the lessons.

The stress caused by CA in our family has made us decide not to re-enroll our student next school year. But that hasn't stopped CA from asking us for a review. But they only want you to give them a 9 or a 10... if you don't think they deserve that, they tell you to contact the Executive Director. So, in other words, don't give an uncomplimentary, honest review. That's why I'm doing it here.