Connections Academy

Re: Connections Academy

Drew just joined. Shona is the "expert" on CA. Duncan uses them and she is a fount of information!

Re: Connections Academy

They dont have a G&T Art class yet, but they might have one in the future. However, they do hit on stuff Duncan never hit on in public school art class. Most of the stuff he has done I didn't get introduced to until jr. high. They do have G&T Math and Language arts and Literature. They should have a G&T Science next year as well. I know little to nothing about other programs that are not G&T. I can help as much as i can and i have the webmail addresses for people i can contact if need be.
Duncan LOVES CA. He gets up when he wants, he does the classes that are hardest when he is at his best. And his easier classes when he isn't. You can schedule BLOCK courses. Such as.. only Art and Literature on Mondays and wednesdays or.. whenever and then other classes on the other days, or.. if they have her scheduled for only 2 art classes a week, you can up them to 4 or 5. Or more.
From what I have found out, the Teachers are wonderful and you can contact them at any time and they will get back to you ASAP. You can contact the principal or the couselor as well. Not to mention Tech support which has returned my webmails in record time. There are online communities with Yahoo and message boards within the school itself. They offer AMAZING electives and foreign languages including Mandarin Chinese and American Sign Language. ( Duncan took a semester of Spanish and is now in ASL) Along with Science in the KItchen, Arts and Crafts, School paper, Poetry Club, Pen Pals, and Field trips. We have a field trip coming up on the 19th, to Columbia. Though we can't go.. too far for us. You can go to wherever your school is located ( Ours is in Columbia) And meet the staff. The homeroom teacher keeps in touch with you and the student. You are not responsible for lesson plans and the like. But there are things you will need to help with. Some states ( most states) even offer Loaned Computers. Some are desktops and others are laptops. We didn't get one, because this is SCCAs first year. Sorry, That would be South Carolina Connections Academy. You as the LC (Learning coach) do have some responibilites, marking attendence etc. And you recieve all webmails that your student does. At least those from staff.
I could go on and on. We love CA. Best thing we've done for Duncan's education so far!

Re: Connections Academy

We are considering this for the girls next year... Missouri does offer CA. I need to check into the schools in Missouri, and see how they rate. With G&T for both girls they don't always get challenged enough in regular school. We shall see

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i'm actually considering this for Nate... he's been having some "behavior" issues in school and I think that this might be a good choice for him. From the information i've gotten in Pennsylvania they do the loaned computers and printers and they will also help reimburse internet bills.

Re: Connections Academy

That is what we have, Mary. I declined the computer and printer (the kids would just trash them or crash them! LOL!), but I did accpet the internet help. I think it is $50 every 3 months - they weren't sure about the exact amount.

Things are still pretty rough with Drew and CA, but we are getting there. His math teacher did a private "Live Lesson" with him yesterday and let him redo on fo the assignments so he would unerstand itbetter. She called us the day before to talk to both Drew and me. Gotta say I really liked that!

Re: Connections Academy

It sounds great from what Shona said.

We have never used online academies because they do not offer anything of interest that we can't do ourselves. (besides there are few if any online academies that have considerations for special needs children).

Speaking of China, we learned this week how to use an abacus during our study on China and the Chinese New year. I have a friend in our co-op who will be teaching Pŭtōnghuà (Mandarin) and Yuè (Cantonese).

We learned that Chinese is a family of closely-related but mutually unintelligible languages. There are different dialects. In all over 1.2 billion people speak one or more varieties of Chinese.

I enjoy learning along with my children that I couldn't leave their homeschooling to anyone else.

Re: Connections Academy

Actually CA does have Special needs programs. They work with different IEPs and 504 plans as well. There are severly learning disabled children ( as far as i can tell from the CA message boards) up to the gifted children. So .. both ends of the spetrum.

Re: Connections Academy

I wish we had it here. I have written the President, Sen. Byrd, Rep. Capito and my Governor all about bring CA to my state and in the case of everyone but the gov, nationwide. If they want to keep those public school dollars for homeschooled kids, they need to do this.

Re: Connections Academy

I took a look at the website and it looks like a wonderful program! If I end up working from home with this baby I am thinking about putting the girls in it.

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Sandra, Drew is a SpEd student and he is in CA. It works just like a public school because basically it IS a public school. We had to give them copies of Drew's IEP and ARD paperwork becasue of his ADD and Dysgraphia. For him, it didn't make much of a difference since his basic accomodation is doing written assignments on the computer. But they have changed some of the assignments he does/will do to further accomodate him.

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Michael has never been in public school so we have never had an IEP done for him but I do make my own version of a IEP.

Still I'm not interested in CA for us. I am too much of a Homeschooler to go for something that sounds like public school to me. (sorry, I should have told you sooner about that)... besides we use so many different curricula (from Charlotte Mason, Living Math books, Classical Homeschooling, etc) that would not have it any other way.

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I can see your point. You are a certified teacher. It is public school only online instead of in a brick and mortar building. I have problems with the actual brick and mortar school environment, but not necessarily what they teach. I have kept up with everything Shona and the others say about CA and it seems like the perfect fit for us.

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That would be a bad idea. I have taken public transportation for years, and I think you are right there.

Re: Connections Academy

It's funny you mentioned that. In all the years of teaching public school, I don't use any of the materials, lesson plans, ideas from it. I learned through trial and error that it worked best if I tailored my son's curriculum to his special needs instead of trying to tailor him to fit the system.

Everything we do is very different from what I taught years ago in the public school system. My mentor was my older sister who has been homeschooling for over 25 years and she is just going back to earn her GED.

In my opinion, any parent with a desire and determination in their heart to homeschool... is certified to be their child's teacher.