shawnamama

Hi,
I've desperately been looking for a middle school for my son. The school he is currently at is okay but next year he would be going to our local public middle school which is notoriously bad . I've looked at local private schools and there just aren't many options and the ones that I like are very expensive (out of my price range) and/or have waiting lists (very little hope getting in). Recently I've started searching for online schools. I have found a few, one I thought looked really interesting: http://www.virtualacademyms.com , I was wondering if anyone out there has had any experience with Virtual Academy Middle School or know of any other online middle school you would recommend looking at? Thank you in advance for your time.

Xero

I don't know anything specifically about certain online schools, but in my opinion (only an opinion, I don't know your child) online schooling is a bad idea. I know some kids can do it, but the kids that take online schooling have to be extremely self motivated and very good at learning by themselves. I know quite a few kids doing cyberschool and they weren't bad students to begin wtih, but when they started cyberschool they fell behind real bad and have the tendency not to do their work (because they aren't forced to by the teachers). Cyberschool doesn't say "you have to do exactly this and that and it must be done TODAY" what they do is they give kids a lot of work at once and they say you have to have all of this done by this certain due date (pretty far off from when they get it). And kids tend to think they can wait till the last minute. They think they can go days without doing anything because they can catch up, where a real school system wouldn't allow that. In my experience, kids don't always do too well in cyberschool unless they are exceptionally mature. Just an opinion, just thought I would share my piece. I don't know, your child might do better than what I have seen. Good luck!

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shawnamama

Thank you for your reply Xero. I had the same concerns, so many of the online schools I looked at didn't really seem like a real school program. I don't know of any teenager (or adult for that matter) that is disciplined enough to stay on top of their school work without a lot of supervision. I've looked into Virtual Academy Middle School more and found out that they operate very much like a regular school. I've decided to try their school for next year. I got a personal tour of the school and a feel for what the classroom is really like, it was really really cool. I was really inspired, they take a very different approach than what I saw in other online schools. The teacher that showed me around the classroom is very passionate about education and I was really impressed with the curriculum. Well, I guess I will see how it goes next year.

Xero

Well that sounds really good then! It sounds like a promising opportunity. I hope he does well with it. It's always important to look around, so now that you've found something good I bet his chances are better. Hope it works out.

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jtee

shawnamama, what other on-line schools did you consider?

shawnamama

I looked at and considered 3dlearn.com and k12.com. After looking into them I really liked virtualacademyms.com.

musicmom

Pinkbook

Does the state offer out of zone transfers? Perhaps that would be something to look up for. Perhaps you can transfer to a better school? I know that one of our friends was supposed to go to this school who is notoriously bad and then because the school didn't fit the no child left behind act she got a transfer for on out of zone school. I don't know how that works but just throwing something out there for you to consider.

fallon

this thread is very old and this person is most likely done seeking advice. Please DO NOT bump dead threads, it's against the rules of the forum

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