The Conservative Cave
The Bar => The Lounge => Topic started by: Gina on July 20, 2011, 06:45:12 AM
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http://www.k12.com/tnva
Please give me your opinion about this school.
[blockquote]Tennessee Virtual Academy and K¹² give students in grades K–8 the chance to learn in the ways that are right for them. TNVA offers:
The exceptional, effective K¹² curriculum
A high-quality, tuition-free public education
An individualized approach to learning
An active, school community
Highly qualified, Tennessee-certified teachers
TNVA is an online public school authorized by the Union County School District.
[/blockquote]
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My opinion? Not much! Maybe it's fine for single courses or summer school, but K-12 via the keyboard? No! Nothing beats the populated classrooms and the playgrounds for socialization, a very important part of growing up.
My 2¢..........
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http://www.k12.com/tnva
Please give me your opinion about this school.
[blockquote]Tennessee Virtual Academy and K¹² give students in grades K–8 the chance to learn in the ways that are right for them. TNVA offers:
The exceptional, effective K¹² curriculum
A high-quality, tuition-free public education
An individualized approach to learning
An active, school community
Highly qualified, Tennessee-certified teachers
TNVA is an online public school authorized by the Union County School District.
[/blockquote]
Sounds too good to be true.
Gina I would not put a child TODAY in any school that has not one black mark against it---
Nothing is perfect, if the school appears lily white and clean there has to be some kind of a cover up.
Robots are not the teachers, humans are and NO school, Church or private school has no blemishes on their records.
With children today it gets Iffy as to where to pay people to educate them. Free tuition is crazy.
Warning signs-----
Tuition free--so who pays the teachers, the taxes on the property etc. The online expences??
Certified teachers means nothing, in private schools the teachers are certified by the school--
could be an 8 grade drop out of one of the administrators teaching a class.
Most states will authorises a school to be built or held in homes or churches for $500-1,000 licencing fee. What is the cost to go online and how do the administerators get paid???
The red flags are flying all over the place.
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Do you home school? Don't know the specifics in TN but if I had the opportunity to teach my children at home, especially in the lower grades, I'd do it in a heartbeat. This looks fine to me!
Children can interact for social skills in many ways and I wouldn't put "public school" high on any list for teaching values to youngsters, not in today's world. Much less put any faith in what is being taught curriculum-wise.
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It says it's out of Union County, which is over here by me.
I've been to Union County. I'm sure there are some very very lovely people there.
However, I will not go there to do any of my reports. No way, no how. BTDT, won't go back.
Did you ever see the movie "Deliverance"?
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On-line courses are a great way for parents who are home-schooling to cover the gaps in their own knowledge (Like math, chemistry, physics, etc.) or to make up for the weaknesses of parochial schools that are a lot more into religion than actual education (Usually any school with 'Baptist' or a foreign Biblical-sounding word in its name). However, they aren't such a good way to meet the socialization function from personal interaction that real brick-and-mortar schools provide and that even home-schooling gives.
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I hated online classes. I had even less motivation to complete them than I did my regular classes. I avoided them as much as possible.
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I'm torn. I'm a strong supporter of homeschooling, and I'm currently taking a number of classes online, but I'm not sure how that would work for younger children. It does says that only 20% of the time in the younger grades is spend on the computer, but it would really depend on your child and how they learn. Also, I didn't see anything about accreditation on their website, which may become an issue later on.
I know that here in California we have charter schools that are focused on homeschooling families, and they are fully accredited schools so that children don't run into problems later.
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It says it's out of Union County, which is over here by me.
I've been to Union County. I'm sure there are some very very lovely people there.
However, I will not go there to do any of my reports. No way, no how. BTDT, won't go back.
Did you ever see the movie "Deliverance"?
Loved the movie, saw it before I moved South.
Times changed since that movie came out.
I was a bit perturbed to be walking the boundary line of my in laws 40+ acres to have a Sheriffs deputy come out--yes he did sort of jump out of the bushes and demand to know who I was and why I was there.
Being I was family I told him I was on my own property, not exact as it belonged to my in-laws but I considered myself as family----Even as I still had a Yankee accent.
The sheriff in full uniform no less told me not to be wandering about especially as I was bare foot. Why not, well he began to educate me in rattle snakes, copper mouths, spiders and all the little goodies that were unknown in Maine, who ever heard of a Chigger up here???
Grand dad taught me how to move around wasps and yellow jackets and Bees and not get bit but the snakes and spiders were foreign to me.
So off I went home wondering what the heck the deputy was doing in the woods.
Mother in law calls me all upset the sheriffs office had come to see her to ask questions on ME. Who was I, why was I wandering around the boundary bare foot. Why did they allow me to wander about with no warning about was in the Southern Woods.
After MIL bit off my head and a few months down the line I found that there was about 30 acres of pot being grown under the sheriffs protection.
Darn, that was not the least of it, there is more then pot, stills and what have you going on back there, I came home at 2 AM from work to find a bunch of trucks on the dirt road hauling in deer that had been jacked. I had to drive into a dead corn field to get around the dudes and another 5 miles of dirt to get home. Scared the shit out of me.
Ah Youth, so naive and no real fear.
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Oh Vesta, the stories you have to tell! :lmao:
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Do you home school? Don't know the specifics in TN but if I had the opportunity to teach my children at home, especially in the lower grades, I'd do it in a heartbeat. This looks fine to me!
Children can interact for social skills in many ways and I wouldn't put "public school" high on any list for teaching values to youngsters, not in today's world. Much less put any faith in what is being taught curriculum-wise.
No but it sounded interesting. There are some Memphian's here that are doing this program with their kids. It's the "public education" that is making me wonder.
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My own kids did a hybrid of online and correspondence courses for a couple years when we lived very far from a school. A neighbor had satellite internet and phone for his work and committed to letting mine use it a few hours every morning. They didn't need to get online every day in our case.
That did work well for us. All the other families in a large area homeschooled. We got the kids together every week and did class projects and presentations. Also did team sports on those days. They all provided community service to the nearest town, the Forest Service, and BLM, too.
One can make it work, and work very well, if they are committed to providing good education and other life experiences and skills.
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Time's may have changed, Vesta....but not much in Union County. They still shoot and ask questions after.
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I think your right to be concerned about the quality of the public education weather it's a school building or online. That's where I would focus my research.
As to socializing and social development that can happen anywhere.
- Boy/Girl Scouts
- Sunday School
- Day Care
- Neighborhood kids, depending on the "hood" (lol) and the weather
- Swim lessons, gymnastics and team sports
- Summer camp
- Museums and Zoo's have tons of activities geared toward children
-4H (that's still a thing right?)
- Community service was mentioned above (I hadn't thought of that one... what's that say about me?)
Best of luck in whatever you choose to do school-wise. Lastly, of course, I should note that I have no expertise in this area whatsoever and I probably should be ignored on any topic anywhere not related to football or "____ walks into a bar" jokes. I guess I should have said that first.
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Check out the virtual school family videos on the K12 site http://www.k12.com/take-a-peek/family-student-spotlights
Very high quality education with state certified teachers. Satisfaction ratings in the high 90s.
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I think your right to be concerned about the quality of the public education weather it's a school building or online. That's where I would focus my research.
As to socializing and social development that can happen anywhere.
- Boy/Girl Scouts
- Sunday School
- Day Care
- Neighborhood kids, depending on the "hood" (lol) and the weather
- Swim lessons, gymnastics and team sports
- Summer camp
- Museums and Zoo's have tons of activities geared toward children
-4H (that's still a thing right?)
- Community service was mentioned above (I hadn't thought of that one... what's that say about me?)
Best of luck in whatever you choose to do school-wise. Lastly, of course, I should note that I have no expertise in this area whatsoever and I probably should be ignored on any topic anywhere not related to football or "____ walks into a bar" jokes. I guess I should have said that first.
Thanks. I send my son to a private Catholic school now. Pretty happy with it but I saw that and was like that is too good to be true.
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We started my 14 year old in online school last year, 8th grade, because our local public school, while giving a decent education, has issues with controlling fights and bullies. She'd been getting more and more miserable for the last couple years, it was time to try something different. As I'm not as impressed with our local high school, I wanted something done before 9th grade.
I'd love to be able to put her back in private, Christian school, but just can't swing the cost and scheduling. (Note on the earlier snark on Christian schools, my husband teaches at a community college...the Christian school and homeschool kids need a tiny fraction of the remedial classes required for public school students.)
We enrolled her in a public, online school. The cost is covered just the same way all public school costs are covered, so nothing weird about it...except they don't collect lunch money. The teachers are scattered all over the state, just like the students; as long as they have a good internet connection, they don't have to travel in to a school building every day. I think most are very rural.
The classes take a lot of reading, of course, and vary in difficulty. Things like science experiments, photography assignments, and other assignments sometimes require a lot of help from us as stand-ins for the teacher, or for travel or assistance with research. Some of the classes are completely "canned," and we've complained about one that was so poorly written that the test questions were often never mentioned in the reading. We've also had to contact teachers repeatedly before we received replies to e-mails, but most were both quick to reply and were always in the "office" during their "office hour," so not hard to reach. I had a big issue with the math teacher not grading homework before the week's test was due, and had to discuss that with her more than once. So there are some obvious negatives with the online concept.
On the other hand, my daughter has learned an immense amount of responsibility in taking these classes largely on her own. She's had to learn how to budget her time in order to get everything turned in. She's discovered that she learns more quickly and retains more if she does the whole week's worth of class work in one day for each subject instead of doing a little of each class every day. She's learning the kind of skills that will help her in college classes eventually...the things many of us had trouble learning our first year of college, when our time was suddenly not structured by the school system.
Her online school features one weekly "virtual class" for each class. The teacher and all students log into a virtual classroom where the teacher lectures and demonstrates just as in a regular classroom. The kids usually type replies, or the teacher can open mics to allow for oral replies. Any specific questions can be asked during that hour, or during the teacher's office hour.
A huge plus for us is that my daughter is no longer miserable, and is more able to concentrate on her school work without dealing with stress-related headaches and stomachaches. Her sick days dropped from 3 or 4 a month to about 4 all year last year. In my opinion, whatever socialization takes place in middle school and the first couple years of high school is completely negative for a large percentage of kids. There are reasons so many kids turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, cutting, etc.