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Resource Description
The K¹² International Academy is an accredited, private online school that offers the world-renowned curriculum from K¹², the market leader in online curriculum programs for grades K-12. K¹² also offers a virtual public school; be sure you understand the difference as the virtual public school is under the umbrella of a local school district.
Website: K¹²
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(67 Reviews)
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Contributor Reviews
Reviews are solely the opinions of the contributor.
My daughter is a senior in high school. Before the pandemic she was an honor student. She's actually already taking online college classes while still in high school and doing well. Our school chose K12 for us during the pandemic as a provider for virtual school. This has been the most anxiety producing experience of my daughter's school career. Numerous times her online math teacher has been missing or has changed in one semester. We wait 6 to 8 weeks for work to be graded and entered by K12 teachers. She has no idea for months what her grades are. She doesn't know if she is prepared for the final exam because she doesn't know what errors she made during earlier tests. It has jeopardized her grade point average and chance for scholarships and jeopardized her graduation. This is a student who was on track to graduate with honors.
Cons: False gods everywhere, even starting at grade 1
Grades Used: 1
I am very upset with this curriculum. "History" lessons for 1st graders have pushed an agenda which is NOT necessary knowledge about false egyptian gods and illegally presented information as though they were facts about these false gods. The students are asked to "identify the sun-god" and other examples like this, which is not only against our beliefs but is against the law to teach false religion information as though they are facts.
Now during this 1st grade mid-semester Language Arts assessment, we are presented with more false gods in the "Legend of the Hummingbird" and our students are asked questions with right or wrong answers about how these false gods were spoken about in the story as though they were fact.
I read the story to my child but omitted the HIGHLY UNNECESSARY sentences about false gods, so my child got a couple questions about this story in the assessment wrong because I refuse to teach her false doctrine.
Please STOP including information about false gods as though they were fact in your curriculum as this is against the law.
Cons: Too much work, too hard. Maybe its for xhildren that are geniuses, I dont know.
Grades Used: 1st and 4rth
I have two children enrolled in the k12 program in WAm The K12 curriculum and workload is horrendous. It is dry and repetitive. There are glitches in pretty much every first grade phonics lesson. First week of 1st grade they expected my kid to write all numberst from1-100 in one sitting, learn to count by 2, 5 and 10 all in one week. The first week ELA storie made him cry- about a native american orphan that has to throw the only doll he has in the fire to appease the spirits and stop the draught. And about a chicken that has only one leg and one eye that gets punished by getting cooked(!) My little guy was in tears. There is constant testing and you have to get 80%. If you get under 80% you fail.They are using a phonics course that has a 50 minute test once a week. And you can not fall under 80%. Ever. Do you know of any first grader that will sit through a 50 minute quiz? Weekly? I dont.
It taks 4 to 7 hours for my fourth grader to get through the day. 7 hours!!!! 5 hours for my first grader IF we do all the required material.
Cons: not enough teacher help, not flexible, too much work
Grades Used: 3 and 6
I have a child in third grade and one in sixth grade in K12, CAVA Los Angeles. I am seriously disappointed in the school. The third grade teacher does virtually no teaching. We have one 45 minute Language arts class per week and one 45 minute math class. They are both TERRIBLE. She clearly has no idea how to talk to children or teach them. Once a week is a science "class" in which she shows a few youtube videos. We actually prefer that one to the ones in which she attempts to teach herself. Needless to say, I am my child's teacher. It is very time consuming, especially since the workload is INSANE. At first, I thought the curriculum would be great. They sent us a lot of good materials and it seemed really well thought out. However, as we progress I realize this is not the case. The math moves way too fast, and there is not nearly enough repetition to make anything stick. After a few days of multiplication they moved onto unknown variables, then quickly onto to two operand problems (5 x n = 35 and 5 x 3 - n = 10). They did not even bother to give the kids time to really study multiplication. My older son went to "real" school for third grade, and they spent a long time practicing multiplication before moving on to more complex problems. Not k12- they just push on! And, if your kid needs more time, Too bad! And, the school is very inflexible. This not a homeschool. Do not think it is. It is a public school that you have to teach yourself. There is compulsary attendance and tons of assignments and tests. It is really easy to fall behind. I hate this school. I won't do it again next year.
My 6th grader is mostly on his own because I can't teach 3rd grade and 6th grade at the same time. Luckily his teacher does seem to do a good job with math and language arts. However, he does not teach history at all. The kids must teach it to themselves by reading a dry history text (usually 10-12 pages a week!) and taking tests. It is very hard. The teacher said the school makes them teach so many hours of math and LA and there is no time left for history.
Cons: They will lie
Grades Used: 4
They told me my daughter failed when I have Screenshot proofs of him getting really good grades. Its also very hard to get a hold of someone for help. They are constantly having issues with their system.
Cons: Illegal teachings about religion
Grades Used: 1
My daughter is in 1st Grade and is 6 years old.
The law states that public schools teaching religion is unconstitutional. Several of the sections in History 1 Summit Unit 2: Lesson 5: gods of ancient egypt are pushing beliefs that very strongly conflict with our religious beliefs.
"Teaching religion" amounts to religious indoctrination or practice and is clearly prohibited in public schools. A public school curriculum may not be devotional or doctrinal.3 Nor may it have the effect of promoting or inhibiting religion. A teacher must not promote or denigrate any particular religion, religion in general, or lack of religious belief.4 A teacher must not interject personal views or advocate those of certain students. Teachers must be extremely sensitive to respect, and not interfere with, a student's religious beliefs and practices. Students must not be encouraged to accept or conform to specific religious beliefs or practices. A program intended to teach religion, disguised as teaching about religion, will be found unconstitutional." (https://www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/religion-in-public-schools/curriculum)
I have looked through History 1 Summit Unit 2: Lesson 5: gods of ancient egypt and can find several instances where the information about false gods are being represented as fact. Even the lesson guide says that 2 of the objectives for this lesson is for the student to "Identify Amun-Ra as the sun god" and "Identify Osiris as the god of the Nile".
I contacted our daughter's teacher and k12 directly about this matter and I hope some changes are made swiftly.
Cons: online teachers can't discipline or motivate students, near zero social interaction
Grades Used: 5
My child is coming from one of the best school districts in our state, yet he still complains that K12 is more work than he had previously. Really, it varies greatly. Some days, he's done after only 2-3 hours of work. Other days, he'll spend up to 8 hours on it and complain a lot. For the light days, it's been important to have other things for him to do. Library books, Scratch, and Prodigy Math have been great.
The system has been great. We were able to get him into 6th grade math, so he's navigating the elementary and middle school systems. I like the middle school system better, as teachers are focused on their subject. We're both new to both systems, and it's gone OK. For several weeks, I had to spend extra time in evenings checking on everything as it was easy to miss something. The K12 system offers many ways to monitor progress and has been surprisingly reliable and quick. It was down maybe once so far and that was brief. Impressive given that several of his classes have 100+ kids in them!
There are some big issues to virtual learning in general. It's nearly impossible for teachers to discipline kids. So, they have to keep chat and microphone off nearly all the time as someone will disrupt otherwise. A big issue is that all the classes are huge. So, there's little opportunity for the kids to interact with each other or the teacher. Overall, it's worked for us only because he's fairly self driven and is able to figure things out on his own. At this point, I'm spending less than an hour a day with him -- and that's generally only to check his progress at night to make sure he didn't miss something.
A downside is that the huge classes and privacy issues prevent him from interacting with other students. Since he has other friends in the neighborhood that are also virtual, he's been fine. We had virtual lunch today with a friend of his. We also get together with some of his friends for exercise (biking or roller blading) at least once a week. It's too bad that K12's system doesn't have better support for this. At least a gym class would be nice (where kids have their web cams on and do exercises). They need more an outlet for their social needs. The large classes have to keep chat and microphones off. K12 needs to supplement with teacher monitored small classes and group projects. Let the kids teach the other kids in small groups with a teacher monitoring while they do grading or prepare materials.
I'm also disappointed that it hasn't taken more advantage of this setting to offer varied learning experiences. With the wealth of online material, it should be possible to let kids diverge more and pursue things they're interested in at the time. Since motivating them is the hardest part, I really think it needs to enable greater diversification in its courses. 5th grade should have a (Scratch) programming class that is taught by a team of people who focuses only on that and build materials for all students in the country. They need smaller, staff-monitored groups. But, the monitoring staff does not need to be an expert on the topic. Let that go to a team of professionals building a specialized course available to all K12 schools in the country.
Also, I'd love to have more supplementary (after school) virtual courses for my child. Some days, my child has a lot of extra time.
Cons: Everything
Grades Used: 8 5 K
There is way too much work for these kids. Every assignment has book work plus computer work. There aren't any teachers teaching the kids. The parents have to be the teacher. It doesn't make sense that there are teachers but they don't do anything and are not of any help. The way I look at it, either have the kids do book work or computer work. And probably have the teachers actively teach the students rather the parents.
Cons: 150/1 student to teacher ratio, poor curriculum, deceptive marketing
Grades Used: 7
Enrolled my son in the Arizona K12 program for about a month. I was assured that he would be able to work at his own level because the classes were customizable. This is an absolute lie. My son was breezing through assignments 2 years behind in curriculum. It was a joke. 7th grade doing add and subtract number lines? 5 weeks into the program? No. I cannot tell if this is being done to appeal to the lowest common denominator to guarantee higher average grades and high pass rates or if their curriculum really is that far behind in the basics.
Then, their system problems are rampant! Their website is constantly down, you can't log in, their own teachers can't log in, completed assignments aren't being recorded as completed correctly, attendance entries aren't being counted correctly, or some other technical difficulty is going on every week. I am not exaggerating. I could see that in the first week or two as they ramp up but we are half way through the first quarter?
Cons: Hard to keep up with extensive lists of work, not for disabled people
Grades Used: A-F
It's not easy. The 7th, 9th, and 11th grade curriculum is extensive, and is designed for students who can move a a relatively fast pace. It's not for dyslexics or learning disabilities. It might work for kids with emotional problems without academic delays. Having said that, the curriculum is MUCH more rigorous than traditional school. When they get done with the school year, they will definitely have some time management skills. I would not recommend this curriculum for kids who don't have a learning coach immediately available the whole time they're working on school stuff.
Cons: too many to count
Grades Used: 4
My grandson was in rolled in Indiana digital gateway Academy and it was a joke. I was told he would be online with a teacher and being taught when in reality I was the one teaching him. Is teacher was online with him 3 times A-day for approximately 20 minutes each time. Know going into this that you will be the teacher!
Cons: poorly constructed program
Grades Used: 1st
Just started K12 for my first grader, I lasted 2 days and quit, the program is a joke, counterintuitive website, basic errors in the assignments. Don't waste your time!
Cons: Everything
Grades Used: Three
My son has autism, my story is the same as all the negative statements listed above. I am a full time college student and it very inportantant to me to graduate as I too am a single mother. People want to say that is an excuse to make it easier on our selves but by the time I am done with work I have completed a 4 man job in one body. K-12 do not have enough information to help with any thing and will put you off and dismiss and transfer you until you are completely bleeding out.If you want to make it with k-12 do not expect them to help you futher with special education. I have spoken to 65 people at k-12 and Hallsvill 3 others .and been transferred countless time's a d made 120 phone calls. Do yourself a favor find another way.After I have take the proper steps to correct this hopefully we will see a better k-12. If not maybe the next person will be more effective.
Cons: not free even if you qualify for free computer, they lie nothing like what they said it was.
Grades Used: 1st, 3rd, 11th
went though the whole process to get my children everything they needed to do school online even upgrade my internet so it would be faster . I was told that we where approved for two free computers an that we would get a email upon shipment not to worry I even told them my back up computer wouldn't run all programs required an i can't afford to buy two $600 computer k12 lied said dont worry all will be shipped to you including books an computers . Here i am on week two of school no computer when I called to find out whats going on they told me I was denied because of lack of income papers (not true ) nothing on my parent portals I have 2 said anything about being denied everything was accepted. Called admin to see whats i could get done about this since school was starting after talking to computer tech line they where nice an said just get on the list an we can ship your computers out normally in two days ok great right. WRONG called admin to fix problem an get on list they out of computers an have no care about you or your children who where lied to .my paper work was in they failed to tell people there was a limited supply of computers. An tried to make it look like it was me not submitting proper paper when I have emails proving thats false. The school tells you its k12 but thats who represents them . Then you ask about why the school always down for maintenance while I'm trying to catch three children up An its k12 . Terrible lying people who have no heart for low-income families its not free . Its not easy . The teacher not one on one . Its all a lie . I have a few teachers who actually good teachers the rest have no idea what there doing . I have about 2hr of reading lesson instructions before I can even have children do school not at all like they tell you when your enrolling.
Cons: Autism/disability!
After it took me over a week to get everything from my child's school!! I turned in EVERYTHING!! AN THEN I GET OFF WORK AN check my emails, an they denied my childs application!!! So I just got off the phone with them, found out because her test scores was too low!!! REALLY??? SHE HAS AUTISM!!! Her scores will be low!! Iam so upset right now!! But more angry 😠 then anything- how dar they denie my child!!! This will not end here!! So I ask them so because She has a disability, she is denied!! They said o um well its cause of her score!!! Bullcrap! ITS BECAUSE THEY ARE discriminating on disabled children!!! Pathetic!! So I went ahead and Drew my other children out of their K12 program as well!! Forget them..
Cons: Too much work, not flexible and way to overwhelming
Grades Used: kindergarden
The materials they sent was overwhelming. Way to much work for a kindergardener and as a single mom with two jobs this was unrealistic. I thought this would be a more "work at your owen pace" and it wasnt After a couple days we were overwhelmed and we both wanted to quit. We spent less tiem reading and actually doing hands on and more time on the stupid computer. My son is autistic and we needed something that conformed more to his way of learning. Definently dont recoomend.
Cons: Attitude, unorganized, no help & kids missed 2 months because they don't send the withdrawal slips.
Grades Used: 2nd, 4th ,8th & 9th
It's been 2 months and I've been trying to get withdrawal slips & I've gotten hunged up on just because I expressed how frustrating the situation is! One specific African American lady says "I can't hear you" Then hangs up & continues to do that everytime I called just because I said it's ridiculous that Its going on 2 months to get withdrawal slips and I asked for a supervisor or a corporate number and she didn't like that. I get forward all the time to a machine! It's ridiculous & they said there's no one to file the complain. It's crazy! I would appreciate if this gets addressed and the withdrawal department gets addressed as well! My kids missed 2 months of school because of this! I haven't even complained to them about how they said my daughter needed to be re-enrolled and when I tried to do so they said there's no space, then they call me a month later saying I need to update her attendance, I explained that I enrolled her in another school. Then I get a bunch of stuff shipped to my house for my daughter who isn't in the school and emails and calls of different teachers saying they we're my daughters teacher! They had my daughter in 1st and 2nd grade at the same time! I keep getting emails about her missing work and i told them a bunch of times she was not in the school and it doesn't end. Thank you
Cons: No modified curriculum for IEP's/Special Needs.
Grades Used: F
As a special needs parent I was not properly informed by K12 or WAVA what would be expected of my special needs son. The IEP was not reviewed until the onset of school (even though he was enrolled 4 months prior w/ K12). I called for months trying to get questions answered w/ no response. I was under the assumption that there would be a modified curriculum created for my son based on his IEP. This was not the case. Each day the LC must review the daily plan & use their judgement to modify the curriculum. The teachers are available for questions/support. I feel that this should be clarified to parents when enrolling. There should at least be a option to bump down the level of difficulty for special needs students (ex. kindergarten bumped down to Pre-K). Also the state requirements for attendance /IEP for class connects were overwhelming for my son who was unable to attend due to his sensory dyregulation. I was not privy to the amount/duration of class connects until after school began. If I had been equipped with this pertinent information prior to enrollment I would have chosen NOT to enroll my son. That being said all teachers/staff were amazingly kind & supportive. I wish I was provided this information at the time of enrollment so that I could have made a better decision for my son & avoided putting him through unnecessary stress.
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Cons: Unrealistic proof of residency requirements for a modern world
Grades Used: 10th, or attempted
K12 Online Schools: the Fort Knox of Residency Proof?
We were so excited to try this program which would allow my daughter to travel with me more, as I work for an airline and she loves to tag along as often as she can. With online school, we decided she would ultimately have fewer absences and experience more places! She has been in and is still enrolled in our metro school system as evidenced by several of the documents we submitted.
Then came the “proof of residency” portion of the game ... Because I work for an airline but am not married to my mate, who is essentially the primary bread-winner, the home-owner, and whose name is on the utilities since we combined our households into the home he already owned, we have official affidavits every year, duly executed and notarized, proving our “domestic partnership” for the purposes of his and my kids’ flight benefits. This demonstrates a bank account we hold together, from which the utilities are auto-drafted each month on an account to which we both contribute. This documentation, a myriad of residency proof, which is good enough for an airline, our metro school district, the state in which we live, the IRS, and anything else you can imagine, was NOT good enough for K12. It’s left me dumbfounded. I eventually submitted two affidavits of domestic partnership (one of which was only a few months old), both our state driver’s licenses, a bank statement from the account we hold together WITH at least two utilities listed as auto-paid on the statement, my W-2, proof of the kids’ current and ongoing enrollment in the very school district the K12 enrollment process purports to satisfy, and all state required forms for enrollment here for brick and motor attendance, but still it wasn’t good enough?
Ultimately K12 indicated that if I could just have my domestic partner write a letter verifying that I live with HIM at this address, that would be good enough. What? I need a man to vouch for me informally as opposed to all the mass of formalized proof?? It like having to have a note from your dad when you’re tardy to school. What message does that send my teenage daughter?
Based on this asinine and condescending request, I can’t bring myself to do this. Just because we don’t choose to be married right now, and my name was never added to utilities to which I contribute as evidenced by our joint bank account, he has to verify me to some online school, of which there are many, many to choose. Sorry, there’s too much competition out there for me to stoop to some long-dismissed level of patriarchy I can’t condone. I really don’t get this policy at all. It’s so far above and beyond even what our school district requires that it’s really maddening.
Okay, vent over. I know my contributions to my household are valid and legitimate, so does my school district, the IRS, the utilities, my bank and my employer. There are many other online schools who have logical and acceptable residency bars of proof, as I have now discovered. Thanks for the memories, K12, and the insults.
Cons: unwieldily and dated
Grades Used: k-5th
This is a review about K12's "new and exciting" game approach to learning to use with their K12 curriculum.
My 3 kids tried out Stride with K12 for both ELA and Math. I started with my kindergartener. She got very frustrated by several things. The robotic voice was hard to understand so I had to reread every question to her. The font was very small even on our regular computer screen. There was no placement test for any of my children. I thought at first what she was doing was a placement test, but nope, just asking questions that didn’t seem to match where she was at. The ELA section asked about initial letters, capitals and lower case, alphabetical order (all good) and then started asking about silent letters. She doesn’t know about silent letters and got increasingly frustrated as she got question after question wrong. I mistakenly told her, that’s ok, it’s just trying to see what you know and what you don’t know so it can help you learn. But there was no teaching- just asking the same few questions over and over. The robotic voice would say, no that is incorrect, give an example of a correct answer, but did not actually teach or explain the concept.
When she got to play games, during the very first game she played before the game time was up, she was kicked off of stride because a screen popped up saying she had spent the required amount of time on stride and “goodbye”. When we logged back in, her coins for the game were gone even though she hadn’t gotten to play the whole 60 seconds. 60 seconds is also not long for most of the games and it’s frustrating to the kids to barely start playing a game before being asked to start over and pay more coins. One game kicked her off before she even made it through the tutorial on how to play the game.
With 2nd and 5th grader, there was less frustration but they were both pretty bored. Besides having to read the questions aloud to my 2nd grader, the questions were below their ability level. I logged them in and out a few times to see if a placement test would come up at some point but we never saw one. My 5th grader thought it was silly and a waste of time to have to log out and then back in to switch from ELA to Math.
I’m not a fan of the games, a random assortment of arcade style games that have little to no educational value. The one that I came across that did include an educational component was one that asked m kindergartner questions like 0-17=? but there is no way to tell if the game is an appropriate level for the student without playing it and spending coins. I also didn’t like the mature look of some of the avatars. My elementary aged kids shouldn’t have the choice of a make-up decorated pouty woman’s face or scowly bearded men’s faces.
Altogether, I am not sure what the purpose of stride is. It seems to just be an evaluation tool as it doesn’t teach, only asks questions. I couldn’t find where or if I can access what skills are being tested or the scope/sequence of the questions being presented. Also, after several levels of questions, the content seemed either random or repetitive. For example, it asked my kindergartener to identify /f/ about five times with a few other letters thrown into the mix. Why /f/? It would make sense if we had just completed a K12 lesson about the sound /f/ but we hadn’t.
This, like a lot of things with K12, seems to be about five years behind technology wise with what is possible. There are plenty of similar programs that are free. For example, freckle.com which is more user friendly and cleaner visually and auditorily, or zearn.org which teaches and assesses through play, not as a separate component. Both of these programs also do placement quizzes that I found to be quite accurate though the teacher is able to adjust the levels if needed, which I was unable to do with Stride. It feels a little bit like a ripoff knowing that this is a paid program, even though I’m not the one paying for it.
Cons: Too many activities to fit into each day and the requirement of time spent working online detracts from time that should be spent writing and learning to read.
Grades Used: 1
I’ve been homeschooling my two girls for three years now. The first year I used K12 for my 1st grader and bought 2nd hand a beka text books for my 4th grader. I really wanted a structured course for my youngest because I was nervous about doing a good job with everything that must be taught for first grade. I have to say, I hated it. The first grade ought to be spent writing and learning to read but in order for k12 to be paid for through the public school system it takes attendance by requiring lots of online activities. There are just not enough hours in the day to complete all of the online activities then do the book/written work. At the end of the year I didn’t feel right promoting her. She passed the first grade by the k12 guidelines but she definitely was not prepared for 2nd grade. It was very disheartening. We switched to the a beka academy for both girls the next year. I had my youngest repeat the first grade, it was an incredible difference. A lot of people complain about all of the seat work but how else will kids learn to read and write well? K12 for 1st grade just doesn’t allow the teaching time needed to learn the basics.
Cons: everything
Grades Used: 9th
I have done K12 for half of my 8th grade year, and I signed up again for my 9th grade year. I didn't start on the regular start date for students, because they didn't send me my equipment, and it took almost 5 weeks to get to me. I had emailed the school several times, telling them I won't start on the normal start date. They hit me with tons of missing assignments.. I called the school about it, and the lady proceeded to yell at me, and tell me it was all my fault. They make it seem like a great program, but it's a complete waste of time. They love to stress the students out, and blame everything on the students. I asked my teacher if I could be taken out of my Tech class, as she was not helping me at all. She sent me an email basically calling me stupid, and that I needed to figure it out all on my own. After I told her I wanted to be taken out of her class, then she offered to help, but only when I was willing to leave. The teachers do not communicate with each other at all! I am most likely going to have issues graduating thanks to k12. I will be withdrawled from k12 after my first semester is up because this school is horrible, and they treat the students like trash. Don't put your child through this, it isn't worth your time.
Cons: probably what you do NOT want your child to deal with
Grades Used: almost 9th grade
I haven't even been fully accepted before dropping the curriculum. It's such a hassle to enroll to begin with. They make you fill so much paper work such as grades for the child from last year (which I don't believe in measure my children), shot records, financials, and choice form, to name a few. So before starting, I'm already stressed out and taking about two weeks to try to COMPLY; with a projected start date of OCT 1, 1918. They don't offer AP classes. Just today Sunday I get a phone call at 6:07AM. So I just cancelled. They have been calling on weekends, but at 6:07 in the morning (REALLY!)This free online curriculum is not worth getting stressed over.
Cons: Administration
Grades Used: 10
K12 is only interested in your money. I withdrew my daughter before the start of term and they confirmed in writing that I wouldn’t be charged a monthly fee. They continued charging a monthly fee and are now non-responsive. Filing a claim with the BBB and contacting my Credit Card Company.
Cons: Heavy very old useless USED junk laptops
Grades Used: 11
DON'T use if you want your child to graduate!
The sent us three USED VERY OLD HEAVY laptops, each worse than the one before, & I told them they were as useful as BRICKS; finally they sent that works - too late, MONTHS LATER, & she FAILED 3 of 5 of her classes!!
Although they are very nice on the phone, they failed to actually HELP; hence, she FAILED - a WHOLE YEAR!!!? WHAT do we do now?!!? Anybody have an idea????