Academies
Academies vary greatly, but essentially, they are like being enrolled in a school online to do homeschool. Academies are generally responsible for teaching students all of the material, administering assignments and test, keeping grades, providing report cards, and keeping transcripts. Of course, there are some exceptions when it comes to each of these areas.
Since academies are responsible for all of the instruction, they provide a resource to help parents teach subjects that they may not feel competent to teach or to help take some of the work load off of the parent. Additionally, some academies offer a live teacher, live classes, the ability to interact with other students, and one-on-one help with material whenever the student requests it. They also open the door to homeschool for families that may not feel that they would have the ability to do everything required in a traditional homeschool with regard to teaching and time spent seeking resources and grading work.
Many of the academies are academically challenging and enforce strict guidelines regarding assignments being completed. Liberty Academy, for example, will immediately issue a grade of "fail" and remove students from the class if assignments are not turned in within the timeframe specified. Abeka Academy offers a classical education with strong reinforcement of advanced material. The high academics and strict disipline aspect of academies is attractive to some families because students tend to be more advanced in their educational outcomes. But, it isn't for every family or every student.
In keeping with one of the most important aspects of homeschool, most academies also allow for some flexibility, though, in many cases, not as much so as Book Packs or DVD/Online Videos. The amount of flexibility varies by academy and whether the child is involved in live classes. But, for the most part, academies are designed so that students can start any time during the year, have more than 180 days to complete, and can work on material any time, any day, with the exception of any live classes. Abeka allows up to a year to complete a grade of curriculum, whereas HSLDA, which has live classes for all of their subjects sets specific stop and start dates, but they structure the classes so that students can work on assignments any time during the week between the live classes.
Some academies also offer unusual elective courses. For instance, SevenStar and Florida Virtual offer Chinese, and Liberty Academy can start students on a career in technology in the seventh grade. The HSLDA Academy has an emphasis on political education and entrepreneurship, and offers things such as Moot Court and a year-long study in entrepreneurship. Abeka offers sewing, but the class can be a little harder to follow because there is no teacher for this subject. They also offer violin instruction, which can start in elementary school.
As one might expect, academies are significantly more expensive than Book Packs or DVD/Online Video curriculums. Costs can run between $1000 per year to $5000 per year, depending upon the academy. However, most of them allow students to take only one or two classes as a suppliment to another curriculum instead of the full five main subjects.
Follow the links to the right for a detailed outline of some of the academies. But, as a rough overview to give you a brief glace of how some academies work, we've compiled some specifics below on academies that we have either extensively researched or worked with personally. Please be aware that there are many more academies, and others will be added as we obtain more information about them.
- Lower Cost, More Parental Responsibility, Can Be Done Off-Line - Abeka Academy runs between $1000 and $1200 per year for the five main subjects. Abeka conducts instruction using their DVD or Online Videos, with the DVD option not requiring a student to be online. Parents give out assignments, make sure the student completes all work, grade assignments, and send in student work. Abeka is accredited, and they keep transcripts.
- All Online/Conduct All Grading - Liberty University Academy, HSLDA Academy, and Sevenstar take care of all instruction, grading, issuing grades, and maintaining transcripts. (Exception: HSLDA does not keep transcripts.) Parents do not have to send in work, though they may need to help students scan in some assignments.
- Project Based - Liberty and HSLDA are more project based and would work particularly well for students who need to be "hands-on".
- Live Classes - HSLDA Academy and Sevenstar use live classes to teach their curriculum. Students can interact with other students and the teacher, and they have significant one-on-one interaction with the teacher. Liberty Academy also offers this feature with their enhanced classes, though it is structured a little differently.
- Live Zoom Classes with Full Student and Teacher Face to Face Interaction - Excelsior Classes offers classes over Zoom. The difference between this option and the other academies that offer live classes is that in the others, the platform has the teacher live visually, and the students interact live over chat. Excelsior Classes has the Zoom feature where students can all see each other and the teacher and take turns talking and chat as well. For those familiar with using Zoom for a job, it works much the same way. Excelsior also offers clubs and things like Open Mic nights for social interaction as well. Note: This is not Excelsior college, but is listed as Excelsior Classes for homeschool.
- More Traditional Homeschool - Alpha and Omega Academy's curriculum follows a more traditional homeschool model in their look and feel of the material. They use Ignitia as their platform, which has long reading passages and more "toned-down" graphics. The work is also less academically challenging. In addition, Abeka Academy is a classical education completed by watching a teacher lecturing in front of a class.
- More Contemporary and Visually Appealing - Liberty, HSLDA, and Sevenstar are all structured using current trends in online education, as is Florida Virtual. For students used to heavy internet use and strong visual graphics, these academies may be a better option than some of the others.
- Geared to Working Parents - Liberty (Enhanced), HSLDA, and Sevenstar Academies all offer enhanced classes that are specifically tailored for working parents. They offer live teachers and a high level of accountability. They monitor students to make sure that they are attending classes and completing all work, and they contact parents if students are absent or work is not being completed. Additionally, the teacher meets with the student one-on-one regularly, and they meet with the parents quarterly as well. Liberty also assigns an Advisor to each student that closely monitors the child's work and progress. Our experience with them has been that the Advisors are very good at keeping track of the students, and they are helpful if parents have questions or unusual needs. They are quick to contact a parent if there is a problem. Additionally, Liberty offers a private parent account where the parent can see what the child is doing with their work without the student being aware that the parent is monitoring.
- Christian Curriculum - Abeka, Liberty, HSLDA, Alpha and Omega, and Sevenstar are all strongly Christian.
- Public School Curriculum - Florida Virtual is Florida's public school platform. The State of Florida strongly encourages homeschool and invested large sums of money to develop their homeschool platform. It is known world-wide, and now offers its service to students anywhere in the world. They teach from a non-Christian world-view, but they have some very unusual electives that are not found in other curriculums. Students can take only one or two classes as electives.