Does anyone have a child enrolled in K-12 online public school and if so, do you mind sharing your experience? I have a 3rd grader who is having a lot of issues with public school. This year he was diagnosed with a non-verbal learning disability. He is very smart and capable of the work but he does needs modifications on how the curriculum is delivered and how he is assessed in order to truly be able to tell if he has mastered a concept. We have gone through the whole IEP process but the IEP does not address all of his needs and the teacher follows it when she wants to- there is really no consistency. After what feels like wasting an entire year with this, I have decided to pull him out and homeschool. I did apply to all of the charter schools in our area including the online public school offered by K-12. We only got into K-12 but I an getting mixed reviews, some love it and others hate it. I am curious if any of you have done K-12 and what the pros and cons are. My major concern is that with his learning difference I want to make sure the curriculum is delivered in his strongest learning style and I want the school to support his strengths while helping re-mediate his weaknesses. I almost feel like these expectations are too high for a free public school of any kind, brick and mortar or online, and that I would have more success hand picking a curriculum that supports my son’s specific needs. Any advice is appreciated.
We have chose not to use this because you have to use the curriculum the school gives you, follow their schedule, and take their tests. So for the reasons we chose to Homeschool this was a terrible fit. It sounds like it wouldn’t work well for you either. On the other hand I know a few families who are homeschooling for bullying, etc and the parents have little interest in doing the bulk of the teaching so this K-12 is a great option for them. You just have to evaluate your priorities and decide what fits best.
The problem with K-12 from what I have heard is that it is public school. It is delivered via computer, but it is public school and as such it is not able to adapt to each child’s learning strengths nor is able to compensate for/remediate their weaknesses.
You know your child. You can find curriculum that will work or you can modify it so it will work.
I think that in the end everyone in your family will be learning more and be in a happier frame of mind if you homeschool within the family.
Thank you both for your responses. You have made some really good points. The deeper I get into the enrollment process, the more I am starting to think that this is not the solution and that I need to go with my gut and homeschool him myself. I am really concerned about the stress that K-12 puts on staying on schedule and testing. Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely organized and prefer to keep a schedule but one of my reasons for pulling him in the first place is so that we can go at his pace and really master concepts before moving on. Public school has already been a major stress in our lives, I do not want to trade one bad situation for another.
My mom did K-12 with my brother for 4th grade. Really, it’s just school at home. There were online meetings with his teacher he had to go to. There were tests every week that he had to take. He was supposed to go to the school for end of year testing, but my mom opted out. He learned more following the Easy Peasy Homeschool curriculum than he had doing the K-12. A big part of that was my mom could adapt things. He went through a bug phase where they watched a ton of youtube videos on bees, ants, etc and checked out all the library books. He learned all about their habitats, and for the first time enjoyed writing a report. It was much better than K-12 for his learning style.
Thanks for your response. I feel like that is an important factor, especially in our situation. I am going to have to be able to adapt things to fit his needs. If K-12 is too structured and rigid then it is not going to work very well.
Hello, Just a suggestion…ACE curriculum is work at your own pace. Pretty flexible. I have had friends use it that were in similar circumstances. There are mixed reviews about it but it does really work for some children very well.
I am homeschooling my son with Monarch this year. It has its pluses and minuses, so to speak. The good thing is that I am able to print out anything that I want, which helps when his needs change. Next year I will be continuing this for him, but also doing a paper version for my youngest daughter, whose needs are completely different.
All this being said, I take a LOT of time to look through his scheduled assignments, create projects and bulletin boards for him, so for me it wasn’t an easy out to teaching the material. It just depends on what you put into whatever you are doing 
I used K-12 for Kindergarten because I was overwhelmed at picking all of the curriculums myself and my husband wasn’t supporting the idea of anything other than a brick and mortar school. K-12 was our compromise. We did K-12 for K and 1st grade. This year we have chosen to do full homeschool for several reasons and I am loving it so much better. Here are some pros and cons that I found with K-12:
PRO’s: For me, it was helpful that the curriculum and daily schedule were already done initially, and we just had to complete it. Overall their curriculum was very enriched in my opinion. Every subject is taught using a mixture of books and online tasks which can be helpful depending on your child’s learning style. If you like this type of structure K-12 may be a good fit for you. Now for the cons.
CONS: 1st grade for us was close to 5 hours solid a day and half way through my child hated school. We found ourselves exhausted having to keep up with the daily lesson plan no matter what. This is because you have to complete the online portion before it gets checked off as completed in their system. Also, because it is public school, you are required to log attendance online everyday and check it off online which makes it far less flexible. We didn’t feel like we had any time to do fun things like field trips during the week or extra curricular things such as sports or music lessons. By the time we were done with the day’s lessons we didn’t want to think about school at all. To be fair I should also disclose that I work part-time from home, but I have flexibility in my work schedule.
Fast forward to this year, we now have a Kindergartener and a 2nd grader, and this year I picked all of their curriculums and we are loving our choice. It allowed me to choose the curriculums based on how each child learns. My 2nd grader is very happy we chose not to continue with the K-12 program and is loving school again, and my Kindergartener is doing great. I hope this is helpful.