Connections Academy

My child will not return next year! These teachers accused my child of cheating but they have no proof or facts to back up their claims. When my child is working I am in the room with her monitoring what she is doing to make sure she doesn't cheat. The teachers ignore my emails, especially Mr. Harrison. I've observed the live lessons and they are a waste if time. There really is much learning going on. If you look at Google reviews for Arkansas Connections Academy they deleted 5 reviews made by students and parents and replaced them with reviews by the staff and faculty. Their originally score was 2.8/5 now it is a 4.8/5. This school is very shady and I am overall getting a bad vibe from this school. My daughter is in the 10th grade. She participates in class, went on a couple of field trips (which were a waste if time and only put her behind in class), and she helped organize study groups. Yet! The teacher are ignoring her and accusing her of academic dishonesty. Overall a bad school and it has only made my daughter's anxiety worse. They wrote had referral letters to this school she was interested in. What is the point of writing a referral letter if it is going to be bad. I feel like the teacher don't care enough. The only good teachers are Mark Reider and Melissa Curiel, everyone else acts weird and kinda hostile towards me and my daughter.

Our son started with Florida Connections Academy when it was part of the Florida Virtual School program, four years ago. He started kindergarten with Mrs. Schlenker, and then had Mrs. Helms, Mrs. Gill as teachers. This year his teacher is Mrs. Varner, but there's a whole team of teachers who offer support. We absolutely love the school, and the staff. They're quick to answer emails/texts, and are extra supportive.

The workload is manageable, as long as your student does the required lessons every day. Usually, when there's a Field trip, or we have a doctor's appointment, I make sure that we advance lessons, so that day's lessons are done, as it's easy to fall quickly behind if you don't do that. Except for core courses, the other lessons are spread out, so the students don't end up to do too much in one day. We work 20 hours per week, which is what is required for Elementary school students, though we might work a few extra hours when there are written portfolios requested by the teachers.

Overall the quality of the lessons so far is outstanding, and our gifted son has found the support needed to challenge him and keep him focused. The extra advance lessons provided by the Math and English teachers where he can view his peers, and join debates, and a classroom like environment is truly amazing.

I think Connections is a great school, but for it to work, students must put in the work needed so they can succeed at it.

When it comes to a student that is in need of Special Ed services, this is the worst school for them to attend. My son's Special Ed teacher, Ms. Brandon, was impossible to reach, whether it be voicemail, email, or text. When she did reach out she proved to be extremely disorganized. I explained multiple times that my son was placed in the wrong classes preventing from catching in reading, writing and spelling. She continued to ignore me. I reported the continuous issue to Ms. Noto, the principal, still with no success. We never did hear from the speech therapist that was appointed to my son nor do we know the therapist's name. I even informed the director of Special Ed who also ignored my concerns. My son attended that joke of a school for over a month until I couldn't take the negligence and incompetence any longer. Arizona Connections Academy is a joke and an embarrassment to this State's educational system. I'm seeking council from Arizona Center for Disability Law due to the advice from a considerable amount of people who know about the freak show that Connections Academy has put me through. It's absolutely disgusting what they did to an innocent 9 yr old little boy. They had him so stressed out and in tears.

It is 2 business days from the start of 2020 school year for my daughter and she still isn't enrolled. I have been submitting documents for 3 months and they either state there is an issue with the document or they end up not being processed by the enrollment dept. So far, today I have been on the phone with them for 50 minutes. The rep on the phone doesn't see why she shouldn't have been enrolled yet because she says all documentation appears to be correct. So I'm being transferred for the 3rd time to someone else. It is literally 2 business days away from the start of school and no one has called me to place my daughter in her classes or help us with this. I am very worried that we will not have her enrolled by the time school starts (even though this process started 3 months ago!). If by the end of this call we have not resolved the enrollment nightmare, I will be deleting her account and trying another online school. Hopefully I will be able to enroll her in another school in 2 business days. This company has completely wasted 3 months of my time, but I feel like I might have dodged a bullet. If it's this hard to enroll her, I can't imagine the problems we will have when we start trying to download completed lessons, etc.

Enrolling in connections Academy is the best decision I ever made for my son. He gets all the best learning and therapy while in the safety of his own home. He loves this experience and so do I!

We love the flexibility of this school. We enjoy traveling and this allows us to do that. And where my son had been struggling in previous schools, he isn't with this school.

This school is literally the best. The curriculum, teachers, safety and flexibility are some of the things that make it the best! I am so grateful for this school helping my son with his education.

This program is for independent learning online WITH THE HELP OF PARENTS and the online teachers.
The program is great for students who are FOCUSED ON EDUCATION not expecting to roll out of bed and make an A.
Home school is not for everyone.
I love it because I can go into the lessons with my child and see what activities are available and how to help.
No parent should ever depend on their kids to roll out of bed turn on computer and with little or no effort demand an A.
Not one parent confessed they were involved with the lessons they complain about.

I am so heart broken that I've went through so much to get my upcoming 9th grader enrolled into this school "Virginia Connections Academy", was told to give them about 7 days to know if she's accepted and then right after her acceptance she'd be placed into classes. Well it's been well over a month, honestly approaching 2 months and I still haven't even gotten acceptance or denial. This is so frustrating because I've sent personal documents and now I feel as if I just have my child's documents floating around out there in the world somewhere in just anyone's hands. I've heard NOTHING and I've reached out several times, each time it's the same old tired story... Wait. Well I cant wait forever and a day because if she's denied I would have to register to home school again and the deadline is approaching. Why would you all rush me to get everything on my end complete and then tell me 7 days before acceptance and placement just to leave me hanging? This is not right and the entire process has only added stress in my life when I'm already dealing with so much. Thanks for nothing and please properly discard my child's documents please. This has been nothing short of a NIGHTMARE!

Location: Connections Academy Brand

This program exceeded my expectations. My daughter loves the relaxed home environment which helps her focus better on the curriculum. I wish I did this earlier for both of my kids.

Choosing Connections Academy for my children's education definitely has been the best decision, the flexibility with the scheduling the ability to be right there while they are learning is the best.

The work load for my 4th grader was at levels I didn't deal with in college. Average 30+ lessons/week; average 1.5 - 3 hours per lesson - well, you do that math. I feel I would be remiss in not warning every, single parent out there considering this program. Unless your child is supremely organized, mostly OCD in nature, and has zero interest in doing anything but sitting at the computer for 7-10 hours a day, then I really don't think this is what you are looking for as an alternative to regular school. There is NO REAL FLEXIBILITY, because if you take advantage of the illusory flexibility, you will fall so for behind it will make your head not only spin, but fall off. This school took my 4 years' consistent A-honor roll (straight A's, no B's at all) child, and made her dislike nearly everything about school. This really crushed me as a parent, because I had hoped that the flexibility with a little bit of structure would be beneficial. Well, I was wrong. And I want as many parents out there who are researching this to see my review and I pray it gives them pause. Don't do this to your child!

We are still doing homeschool, but I have pulled her out of this "slave to the computer 40+ hours/week" insanity that is Connections Academy, and gone back to my more laid back parent-driven curriculum. We don't have enough focused resources, it is true, but CA is NOT the answer - please believe that.

My child academic knowledge has improved a lot. Homework and grades are easy to check and access. Weekly call from her teacher helps her a lot to be more determined to learn.

My daughter has had multiple days where she works on school until bedtime. ALL DAY. She is a very good student & has always gotten good grades. We lost our house in a fire & had to move in with relatives. The local public school here is really bad, so I did Connections Academy as a alternative, figured it would just be while we got back on our feet.
We are all miserable. It takes up HOURS every day of our lives. All 3 of us (my spouse, me, our daughter) will work on things & it will still take HOURS to do.
But the real kicker came yesterday. I have been unable to find time to schedule a conference call with her homeroom teacher.
These calls, she has had 2 already this year, in like 3 months... have never been important in any way. The teacher has chatted about what my child had for dinner... forgive me for not thinking this call was vital...
Now, for 2 days I have been unable to access the website. Her teacher told my daughter, through email, that it was because I didn't schedule the call...
If I cant log in, I cant record my child's attendance, which means she falls behind on required public school attendance, AND I cant submit her school work, which is part of my job as her "learning coach".
So we did schedule a call, for this morning, and her teacher never called! So I STILL cant submit her hours or work. At this point my childs education & future is on hold because of a phone call.
I have emailed them 3 times & left a voicemail & never heard back.
DO NOT USE THIS SCHOOL!

We have been with this school for a few years know and we absolutely love it. Its flexible for our busy schedules, the teachers go above and beyond for the students. We absolutely love it.

I have been dealing with this school for 9 years I enrolled all 4 of my children and now I have 2 children that have graduated from here in 2021 and 2022 all I have left is an 11th grader and a 7th grader, I love how it's on their own pace and my children love this school.

I love the flexibility, I really enjoy the fact the teachers call and send messages to help keep the kids on track, it's a great program and I'm glad my kids enjoy it.

I have enrolled my son in ALCA since the 5th Grade and we absolutely enjoy our learning journey online with interactive learning videos, books, live lessons and especially help with a well organized learning schedule/planner and still continue on strong till present. My son is now finishing up his 7th Grade and doing very well, he has straight A's in every subject and an Honor Roll Student, every single semester.
As a busy business woman/ Mom and his learning coach, I am very happy to see my son studying very hard on his own pace and accomplishes his online classes on time using a very organized planner and build up a good strategy to finish all his classes and work on some a little bit ahead. We love Flexibility, Live Lessons and opportunity to learn with no distractions nor frustrations of not being able to understand the subjects. The teachers are always ready to help and keep up with their students via the phone, text messaging. And web mails. And if you do well it's nice to be granted with an extra score to help you stay on top! Thank you for all you do- ALCA!

This school serves their own best interests rather than the best interests of their students. This school was one of the biggest mistakes that I have ever made.

We knew we wanted to homeschool our grand daughter and have been concerned about finding the right curriculum and the right school. I couldn't be more pleased with Connections Academy!

We are on our 4th year and it's amazing.It challenges him weekly,we have the freedom to learn from anywhere,and help is available in many forms should he need it!

I have two children currently at NC Connections Academy. I have expressed concern with the overload of schoolwork and/or communications that seems to be new this year. My honors student is struggling to keep pace and the stress from the volume of information has me exploring other curriculum paths. I intend to keep my son in for the time being since he has some modifications due to special education and he needs to get a curriculum from another source (not me; otherwise we just argue about why he has to do it)... but for my 8th grade daughter I am ready to quit. The teachers assign so much work. They make up for not having a textbook in science by webmailing excessive information (her teacher LITERALLY sent 37 pages in multiple document attachments today in ONE webmail). I have emailed the principal three times but have heard nothing back. I dont know why the changes have taken place. My kids loved Connections last year. This year the stress level in our home to keep up with the work means we have one foot out the door.

Moved from FL to TN and having trouble enrolling my daughter. Online chat did not help and phone call with person who doesn't speak English did not help either.