<p>We live in a subpar school district. My youngest will be in 10th grade there this coming fall and wants to have a chance at a decent college, but doesn't want to homeschool as my other two have done for high school. Having looked at some of what his top level English class will be doing, I find it definitely subpar and our newspaper reported our high school in the "concern" category for English this past Sunday so I don't just think it's my opinion. There are two higher rankings (favorable and caution) and one lower (strong concern).</p>
<p>The guidance office has said he could take the Honors English class with Keystone National High School instead and have it count for a top level class on his transcript, then he could fill his English slot with another class giving him 9 credits for this school year and freeing up some time to take community college classes his junior and senior years in fields he'd rather study (botany "ish"). Other than the website, I know nothing about this cyber option.</p>
<p>Has anyone else had experience with it? Any pros or cons would be helpful.</p>
<p>On the "plus" side they offer AP courses he could take junior and senior year (our school offers none in English).</p>
<p>Aside from missing out on any classroom discussion (which I'm not sure means he's missing anything), is there a downside I'm not thinking of?</p>
<p>We have two weeks to decide. This son was homeschooled from 5th to 8th grade and tested in the 99th percentile on standardized testing in English at the end of 8th grade. I have this feeling that he's losing ground and I don't want him to if I can help it.</p>
<p>Search the homeschool forum - lots of people have used Keystone, but I don’t know about using it for a specific subject. Have you considered having him take a CC English class this year?</p>
<p>He can’t take cc classes until he’s a junior at a minimum and then he needs to pass the entrance test into all college level classes even if he’s not taking that particular subject. With not having had Alg 2 yet, he wouldn’t be likely to pass the math portion just yet. These are the rules our cc has. He’s taking Alg 2 this year (supplemented at home).</p>
<p>Additionally, thanks to those who have sent pm! It sounds like Keystone will be a nice alternative for English with chances to do well on the AP tests!</p>
<p>I took AP lit through keystone. It was very thorough and pretty challenging but I did like it a lot. The only bad part about it is that there are no due data so I struggled with slacking and had a lot to catch up on come the end of the the year. So you either have to be really self motivated or have someone else stay on top of you to complete the course.</p>
<p>Look into Virtual High School, which is structured weekly (our high school uses it, actually) or Aventa Learning. The umbrella organization for both of these is at educere.net.</p>
<p>Keystone is set up more for homeschoolers than the other two, and is looser, I would say.</p>
<p>Our guidance office was quite firm - either he takes the class with the other students, drops down a level (which they don’t recommend) or takes the Honors class with Keystone. He could not independent study it or choose anything else.</p>
<p>corey - thanks for relaying your experience with regards to the AP. I really do like the idea of him having an AP option for his last two years. I’ll have to find a school offering the tests, but I can do that.</p>
<p>Eleven years ago when I first started finding out about our local school they offered AP in English, Calc, Physics, and a few others. Most students never took the test. Those who did rarely scored above a 2. They’ve since dropped all but European History. Technically they still offer Calc (AB), but I don’t think anyone has taken the test in the past few years. Kids have graduated with an A in Calc and tested into remedial classes at average 4 year colleges.</p>
<p>I envy many of you in good school districts, but we’re working with what we have. As I said before, my oldest two homeschooled for 9-12 and 7-12 respectively and have done well. (Oldest is in college and doing well. Middle is doing 12th next year between home and cc and applying to some nice 4 year schools with really nice stats.) Youngest just doesn’t want to homeschool, so we’re honoring that. He was in 9th in public school last year. The other two preferred homeschooling.</p>
<p>I just have this hang up that I want him to get an actual education, not just put in the time. Plus, my older two have been in line (or gotten) superb merit aid based on stats/scores. Ideally, he’d be able to be right with them, but he won’t from our school if we don’t add to it or replace parts.</p>
<p>Our school would give credit for the other schools but not Keystone. Keystone is self-graded for many of the exercises and tests; the other programs have grades for all the work. Virtual High School and Aventa have a lot of AP classes, and my daughter did very well on her AP exams taking courses at both programs. There are also a lot of enrichment courses not usually available at public schools.</p>
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<p>compmom, I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but I think you’re misinformed.</p>
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<p>Well, this would match the academic aspect of our school. :)</p>
<p>However, I’ve had a few people tell me their students did well on the AP tests with their courses, so I can only hope their 10th grade class is decent prep for AP.</p>
<p>Again, our only choice is the school class or this class. The school class has a track record and academic content I don’t care for (not college prep IMO). If there are positive experiences from Keystone, it’s already beaten the school class even if it’s not the best of the best out there.</p>
<p>Creekland, l’m also considering Keystone’s Honors English. Could you update your experience? Also, I was looking at their course catalog but they have only English Online or Print. How did you choose the Honors option? TIA</p>
<p>Deborah, my daugher took a Keystone class. I am not misinformed. Keystone courses have only the exam grades to report to the school, in our experience.</p>
<p>Keystone, as I may have said, seemed more geared to homeschoolers. Our school took Virtual High School credits, and in fact, has joined Virtual High School so that others can take classes there.</p>
<p>There are countless options out there for online classes. I am not sure why anyone would choose Keystone.</p>
<p>I wasn’t pleased with our Keystone experience. Their grading left a lot to be desired (very little feedback, easy “high” grades with multiple mistakes in the writing - like sentence fragments, etc - but those weren’t even mentioned so my guy could correct them). This is my VERY independent son, so he didn’t want me reading what he’d written, but the little bit I got to see I was VERY disappointed with (NOT his content, but the feedback from Keystone). It seemed like they weren’t even trying to develop his writing and just graded off the meaning/intent of the writing (which he was good with).</p>
<p>I would not use them again. Our school has dropped them. I wasn’t the only one with complaints.</p>
<p>My son has a good teacher this coming year. I’m hoping she can help him improve his writing “nuts and bolts” wise.</p>