GreatSchools Rating
Teacher quality
Principal leadership
Parent involvement
This school has changed our girls lives. They have the time and support they need to work longer on subjects which they need more help on. Others which they don't they can move through. Wonderful Certified teacher support and class schedules. We couldn't do it without them!
This is our 2nd year with WAVA. I read some of the reviews below and understand the workload is scary for the learning coach. I have to add though that I felt overwhelmed to begin with. As the year progressed however I realised that my son and I simply needed an organized system. This way we actually finished school a week early last year. He scored well in MSP and he is doing great this year. I am not a qualified teacher or academic person but seriously, if you are committed to your child's future, you can DO THIS!
Not an online school, an online administrator. The "Learning Coach" is actually the teacher. Be prepared for many hours of teaching each day with weekends used to prep for the upcoming week. Very little room to deviate from the k12 daily plans. I homeschooled my older children for 13 years and have never been more exhausted then after one week of WAVA with one child. Be prepared to teach five classes a day as well as watch two hours of online gatherings a week. I do not see how a family could do it with more than one child.
This will be our 3rd year with WAVA and we are grateful for the opportunity to have an option to Public School. What a wonderful program! It is a perfect fit for our grandchild (I am his learning coach). The program is very user-friendly and intuitive, and our grandson could not be happier. He is now relaxed and is making wonderful progress. I must also disagree with the comments below, regarding Christianity content. All "Religious" stories have been from a historical aspect and very diverse!
I disagree with the comments made about the K12 curriculum being centered on Christianity. My second grader has had lessons as a WAVA student about the history of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and early polytheistic religions. Whether you're religious or not, bible stories are woven into our modern culture. The lessons are presented only as stories, just as those about the Greek and Roman gods are. Maybe this parent skipped too many lessons or just has a particular sensitivity toward Christianity. WAVA is outstanding and the K12 curriculum is amazing. The workload is INSANE, but as the "learning coach" (teacher) you have the flexibility to decide which activities advance your child's understanding of the subjects and which do not. You do not have to do every activity within every lesson! Teachers will work with you through any struggles you have as long as you are committed to putting forth an honest effort (and that's NOT 2 hrs. per day!) and as long as you communicate. I highly recommend this program!
WAVA has been a better alternative than putting our son in public schools, however expect heavy workloads in order to meet monthly goals. 5TH grade math can have 30-60 fraction story problems in one daily lesson. Too many!!! 5th Grade math has had many errors in it, especially the adaptive lessons, I have brought this to the attention of K-12, not fair to kids when the lesson is wrong and they give the correct answer and still get it wrong. K-12 must have been written by the Christian Coalition, many many many Bible stories, religion should be kept OUT of public schools!!! I just skip over all these, they have had no other religious stories from other religions, only christian ones so far. Skipped a whole week of bible stories in Lit.
This is our second year with WAVA and it is the best thing we could have done for our child. Homeschool takes a huge amount of commitment from the parent. But it is well worth the effort. Our child has gone from failing in public school to testing off the charts. Just as public school is not for every student, WAVA is not for every child/parent. If you know how to manage your time, establish and reestablish priorities, don't get hung up on the little things then WAVA would be great for you. If not, then I don't recommend it.
This was our 3rd year using WAVA and LOVE it!! For those who feel that the classes "take too much time" or are complaining that you have to be the teacher, well, i don't know what you think homeschooling is about, but you ARE the teacher (MOSTLY) and in the younger years especially, you will be the ones teaching the classes. The classes deffinatly are NOT "too long", they are perfect to get the information across to the children. You can't expect a lession in history for a typical kid to be in 5-10 minutes...But you can expect it to take about 30...my 3rd grader gets done with school in about 2-3 hours and my 7th in about 3 hrs a day. We have nothing but good things to say about the curriculum, materials and support. Depending on the year, more or less is online. In the younger years, more is hands on with workpages, and books and as they progress, there is more online interaction and more of the children working more independently but with adult supervison and as a resource for any issues/questions that arrise. I think a lot of people are "lazy" homeschoolers and feel they should be able to get school done in about an hour a day, thats not realistic. This is duable!
This is my second year doing this and I have a 3rd and 5th grader. Although I never planned this for the longterm for my 5th grader, I've found the K12 curriuclum exhausting. For Language Arts, many of the 3rd party books they use are good. But the in-house developed K12 books are burdensome to use for both grades (teacher's guide for composition, grammar, and vocabulary combined into one fat book). Last year I used sinapore math (not k12's) and this year k12 introduced a new math curriculum. This has been time consuming because lessons and tests are online. We've enjoyed the history lessons, but they're often time-consuming, esp. at higher grades. They have teacher support, but IMO it's token and her role is purely administrative.
The K12 curriculum is amazing, however, each of the year-long courses are crammed into the nine month public school academic year calendar. The progress goals dictated by WAVA are burdensome if you're working with more than one child. The quality of the learning experience is diminished by having to rush through the material in order to keep up with monthly goals. I was misled by the "learning coach" verbiage. These lessons require me to be a full time teacher (40+ hours per week)! There is very little flexibility because we're forced to adhere to the same public school academic calendar as far as weekly attendance. We enrolled in WAVA because we thought saving a few thousand dollars on the K12 curriculum would be worth all the hoop-jumping. It isn't, and we won't be returning to WAVA next year unless they provide a year-round option that makes the pace reasonable.
Our experience with this school was horrendous. It look forever to get enrolled, and we had to re-fax information and wait past the date school started before my child could begin, . After beginning and doing the work, only then did we find out my child's previous school credits would not be accepted. We were not told this upfront so my child had to drop out and we had to rush out and find a home school curriculum at the last minute. It was very stressful and we felt they not only misled us, but took advantage of us. Also, one of the teachers was very hard to reach when my child needed to ask a question. All it all, it took a huge amount of our time, money sending faxes of the loads of paperwork required, and miscommunication with nearly everyone we dealt with, including the school counselor.
WAVA's test scores are not really comparable because part-time students (home schoolers) are not required to take the WASL (now MSP). The state counts those students (even though they are not required to take the test) and gives them a score of zero! Don't trust test score statistics without looking into how they are derived!
This is a very damaging school at the high school level. We live in a rural area where Internet access is sometimes down. WAVA gave us no means of catching up. My son spent an average of 8.5 hours a day, 6 days a year trying to succeed. Contacting teachers and administrators was always difficult and required hours of phone tag and being placed on hold. At the end of the year my son was about 2 weeks behind and was failed for the entire year. After repeating 9th grade my son had a GPA for the year of 3.40. But his Cumulative GPA was 1.864 due to the lost year at WAVA. This school had no business destroying a year of my child s life. He is still paying for my mistake of putting him in this school.
WAVA, is an excellent school for my child. She has more one on one learning time. A much bigger quality social life. Her Lessons are at her personal level of education tailored just for the student. There is no more standing on cold bus stops in the dark morning hours. to get to an over crowded school were you hope your child can learn something ,or even get to finish lunch before loosing there seat in the over crowded lunch room. I wish online public school was an option sooner. It may be the new way to go to school and replace the brick and mortar schools all together.
WAVA is terrific -- and has been an excellent fit both for our twelve-year-old son and for our family. This is our third year of enrollment with WAVA and we've loved all of the teachers we've had for each of those three years -- both for WAVA Middle School and for WAVA High School. The Middle School components we've been most pleased with have been the World History A and B and the fact that each of those courses has been paired with its chronological partner in WAVA/K12's World Art History curriculum. So smart and so natural a pairing -- yet we've not really ever encountered that in a brick and mortar school. Our son also really liked the Physical Science course offered by WAVA Middle School -- and took both Earth Science and Life Science prior to Physical Science.
Washington Virtual Academy has been serving our family for the past four years and we are so very happy to be able to offer my son this quality academis program. The materials are up to date and beautiful and the teachers are outstanding. My son may have dropped out if we did not have this option because of the crime and dysfunction currently in the brick and mortor schools.
At the High School Level the curriculum is completely on-line so your student is in front of the computer for at least 6 hours. They advertise that the student can work at their own pace, but program is highly structured and sequential with little extra time for extra exploration. The teachers we worked with are great -- but as of 2009/2010 WAVA is still very unorganized with enrollment and re-enrollment. Students often are not able to start their lessons at start date of school -- either lessons not yet availalbe on-line or supplies not sent. This means your student will spend many nights, holidays, and weekends trying to catch up.... a recipe for burn-out. Not recommended.
Our 3rd year with WAVA. Great program for struggling students (I have one) and for the gifted learner (I have 3). The gifted learner can motor through subjects as quick as they like and for the struggling student, they receive the greatest gift, more attention to areas they have problems understanding.
The WAVA curriculum is much more in depth than anything my son worked on while in my son's previous brick and mortar school. His interest has definitely increased... he loves learning about the ancient Greeks, and Egyptians. He is in a Language Arts grade level that is more challenging than at his old school. He participates fully in all coursework and since we can work on our own time, we never have to rush through or skip parts of the lesson. I have had more contact with his teacher through WAVA than I ever had at his prior school. She is there for me and my son whenever we need her. I would highly recommend this option to any parent who wants to be more involved in their child's education or to parents that are less than satisfied with their child's current educational system. There are options! :)
Outstanding program for your children! They are more attentive than any other public school we've had our kids in, even setting up and then exceeding the 504 Plan requirements when the public schools continue to ignore them. (My child is in the local school 1/2 time)
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2601 South 35th Street, Suite 100
Suite 100
Tacoma,
WA 98409
Website: Click here
Phone: (866) 548-9444
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