Details About Liberty Academy
Liberty Academy is run by Liberty Christian Academy, which is affiliated with Liberty University. Liberty Christian Academy sits next to the University in Lynchburg, Virginia. The technical name of the online homeschool version of the Academy is Liberty University Online Academy.
Liberty Academy is one of the most well known homeschooling academies and has students world-wide. They are accredited, and they do keep transcripts and issue a high school diploma if a student completes school with them through the 12th grade as a full time student. They hold commencement ceremonies each year in Lynchburg, Virginia for graduating seniors complete with caps and gowns.
Students enrolled in Liberty Academy, whether full time or part time, are often invited to the campus of Liberty University for activites, which include things like a Christmas party, football tailgate party, etc. It is approximately a four hour drive from Oakland, MD to Lynchburg, VA.
Liberty's curriculum is fully online, so students do need an internet connection. There are no books. All of the material is online as well. Most of it is included in the daily lessons, but there are some extra programs that the student will need to sign up for, which are all online as well.
The curriculum is designed to be "Project Based", which means that student assignments are often projects, which help teach the material through "hands-on" learning as opposed to as much memorization. An example would be as follows: In sixth grade students are given the titles of several books to read. Instead of having the student do a book report on each, students need to do things like create a newspaper that details events that happened in the book. Students have the option to create the newspaper with either paper and glue or with a computer program such as "Word". They generally have several projects associated with one book. Additionally, they will need to take quizzes and do other online assignments regarding the book. Parents should note that they are responsible for obtaining the book for the child, which can be either a physical copy or an online copy.
Students do not observe a teacher or a class. Instead, lessons are set up similar to online college, with reading materials; some videos; games; diagrams; and such. Lessons are progressive, so students must complete one lesson before they can move on to the next. The design of the platform is current, having a look similar to today's online universities, and will appeal to students that are used to the tech generation. In other words, some of the homeschool platforms have an outdated look and feel. Liberty's look and feel are contemporary.
Students have access to a live teacher that they can message any time with questions. Teachers respond within 24 hours or less and are good at helping students that are stuggling. Additionally, each student has an Advisor that follows the student's progress throughout the year. Our experience has been that the Advisors are very good at keeping up with the students and seem to be quite knowledgeable. Additionally, if they don't know something, they have been quick to find the answer. Advisors will contact parents directly if they feel there is a problem with the student's academics or completion of lessons.
Liberty also offers "Enhanced Classes" for some of the subjects. These Enhanced classes are geared toward students who want more interaction, homeschooled children of working parents, and students that may have a hard time completing work without a higher level of supervision. With an Enhanced class, students attend a live online class every week (or more often for some classes). The live class allows students to see the board as the teacher writes, and it has a live chat function where students can talk during the class. Students also have the option to talk vocally, but they do not have to do so. Everyone in the class can see what is written on the chat by both students and teacher. Students also have the opportunity to see the teacher live at the beginning of class, and all the other students live at the end. Students cannot privately chat with other students. However, they can privately message the teacher. Teachers closely monitor students and will contact a student that is having problems. Prior to taking every test, a student must meet with the teacher one-on-one to see if he/she is ready to take the test. Students are only allowed to miss a couple classes per year, unless they have a doctor's excuse. If they are not in class or doing poorly, the academy will contact the parents.
With regular classes, students can start any time of the year, and go until the class is completed. They will be removed from the program if they do not do any lessons for 30 days, though. If removed, the student's transcript will show a grade of "fail". Enhanced classes have a specific start and stop date. In the event that the student cannot follow the full schedule, they will allow an extra 30 days to complete, however, this is reserved for special circumstances, as it would be hard for a student to keep up in the class if he/she did not follow the schedule. In no circumstance are students allowed more than 30 days to complete beyond the end of the course. At that point, they receive a "fail". Again, if students in Enhanced classes do not do work for 30 days, unless there is a doctor's notice and the parents contact the academy to set up special arrangements, the student will receive an automatic "fail".
Liberty's curriculum is challenging and academically advanced. It is not possible for a child to pass if they do not complete most, or all, of the assignments, so the full curriculum has to be completed. Therefore, students attending the Liberty Academy do receive a strong education.
In our research of students that used Liberty Academy, we had very positive results. All of the students and parents were happy with thier experience with the academy and said they would recommend it. One of the children has ADHD and enrolled in Liberty to see if its project-based approach would be a good fit. Her parents found that she did better with Liberty than any of the other options that her parents had used. Her parents concluded that because she needed to interact with the computer for all of her lessons, and many of her lessons required projects, she was able to keep her focus better than she had with a watching/listening approach. We also followed a high school student with motivational problems whose parents had had a difficult time encouraging her to complete all of her lessons. She was enrolled in Liberty Enhanced classes to see if it would solve the problem. Although the student had become adept at beating homeschool systems in place to make sure she completed her lessons, she found out that she was unable to skip lessons with Liberty because they quickly found out and contacted her parents. She tried numerous approaches throughout the year and finally resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to do all of the lessons. We talked to another high school student who had tried several different academies. She stated that Liberty was her second favority academy behind HSLDA Academy. Of course, every student is different, and just because these students faired well at Liberty, that doesn't mean that all students would. So, we ask that parents please research the different curriculums for themselves to determine which is better for their family.
We found that Liberty does not have as much work as Abeka, especially in Language. Abeka has separate classes for Grammar and Punctiation, Spelling, and Reading, whereas Liberty rolls it into one, so not all of those subjects are covered every day. Additionally, Abeka requires a much higher level of memorization than Liberty. Overall, the educational quality may be a little higher in Abeka for elementary school, however, since they are completely different styles of learning, this could be offset for a child that fairs better with a project-based curriculum. Additionally, in our studies of academies, we found that HSLDA Academy is more interactive than Liberty. However, despite these issues, we highly recommend Liberty Academy.
Liberty is expensive. The cost for first grade is $2196.00, second to eighth is $2745.00, and ninth through 12th is $3568.50 per year. Parents can pay by the month, though. And, these costs are if the student is enrolled full-time. Students can opt to take only one or two classes, if they choose. One class is $549.00. Add $99 for each Enhanced class.
Students can also enroll in Liberty University as a dual enrollment through Liberty Academy. Only specific classes qualify, but it is a long list. The Academy states that it is possible to obtain an Associates Degree by the time the student graduates high school. The cost of a college class is only $549.00, which if you are familiar with Liberty University pricing, is extremely reasonable and represents a huge discount. Parents need to be advised of the following. If a student enrolls in Liberty Academy full time, and they wish to take dual enrollment classes, they have to pay the cost of the Academy plus the cost of the college class. However, if they sign up "a la carte", they only need to pay $549.00 per class for the college class. We signed a student up with the Academy to take one Academy class and several dual enrollment classes. We were told to ask for "a la carte". In this case, they charged us $549.00 for the Academy class and $549.00 for each college class, and there was no dublicate fee.
One more piece of information: If your child wants to attend Liberty University after high school, you should be advised that Liberty does not take very many credits from Garrett College. They will take College Algebra and Intro to Computers, but not English 101. The Liberty Transfer Credit Calculator allows individuals to obtain information about credits that will transfer to Liberty from any other college. Parents are encouraged to contact Liberty to verify that information before making decisions regarding classes. Additionally, if your student is hoping for scholarships, you need to make sure that your student has less than 24 credits before entering Liberty University as a high school graduate because once a child has 24 credits he/she is no longer eligible for the big scholarships, including the full-tuition scholarship.
Liberty Online Academy's Website can be found at: www.liberty.edu/online-academy/.
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