Outschool

This platform is doing illegal things and taking advantage of teachers. Parents need to stop supporting it and teachers need to stop joining it.

I have taught and been a parent on the platform. They will not honor the teacher referral program, they do not provide teacher support, and the emails to teachers are very mean/unkind if a family needs a refund for any reason (even ones that don't involve you). They threaten teachers they will remove them if they don't pay pay refunds in 2 business days. They will email teachers threats about the smallest things it is a very toxic environment for teachers.

As a parent on the platform, the site has no family support. The site has many technology issues, and logs outs are common. If you try to message support you only get a bot and no follow up. Teachers will disappear off the platform, and your child is left confused.

Get out and stop supporting this platform.

My kids have been taking Outschool classes since the very beginning of our homeschooling journey back in 2017. Five years later we are still very happy with the site. There is so much variety to choose from and the site is reputable with consistent high-quality classes.

Teaching on the platform has been an absolute blessing for my family as well. Annually I average $75/hr working part-time hours. A lot of teachers who complain about not making money or getting enrollments have only themselves to blame; I often check their profiles and notice they have only 1 or 2 classes and a poorly-made bio video, class descriptions are riddled with typos and/or they have negative parent feedback. You have to keep working at your business, not sit there and wait for life to happen. I love teaching on Outschool!

My son has enjoyed all the classes he's taken so far from Outschool. We haven't used it for his main subjects, just extracurriculars. One teacher has a Studio Ghibli art series and taught him how to make Soot Sprites from Totoro. Another teacher offers courses such as Design Your Own Zoo and Design Your Own Town- we didn't try the town one yet, but the Zoo was so much fun for my son. I love that they offer social clubs arranged by age and interest, as socializing has been difficult during lockdowns. They have ones for Minecraft, Mario and even Animal Crossing. I love that they run background checks on the instructors and have secular content which- while becoming more common- is often harder to find in the homeschool world. I also like that they are considered a vendor with most hybrid-homeschool charters, so the courses are covered by them.

My daughter is educated in ways we could never get in any other setting. My son is going to rejoin for high school this year after seeing how flexible my daughter's schedule is while getting "real" education (as she calls it). My son knows how much "fill" goes into his days in his school, while my daughter's Outschool classes are focused and she never goes unanswered. She is 12 and knows how to put together business cases, manage her time and schedule, cook a 5-course meal, is going into Algebra II, etc. She thinks ahead because she has a mix of daily and weekly classes; it's teaching her to approach each day as an important day, instead of the "only 3 days until the weekend" mentality. The fundamentals are so strong with the class sizes and the montessori style break-outs. My son's school is just managed chaos, with so many miserable teachers; Outschool has the best educators I've ever met. There is accountability in that parents may post any review and watch the class to make sure it's meeting expectations. We've have parent-teacher meetings and the teacher welcomes feedback, even has shifted things based on our suggestion (something that would never happen in traditional schools). I am still blown away after 3 full years and just wish the majority of education was just like it is on Outschool.

Not happy with outschool.com teachers this week... one of them cancelled two minutes before class on Wednesday, claiming his internet was down... we just got an email from another teachers that she was holding debate class this week because it was "Spring break" and they were going on their "staycation" -- is she kidding? Um... we are ALL on a very long Spring break and staycation and the whole reason we signed up for these classes is to continue our education and have activities NOW...

Beware! The teachers are kind and great, the company is super sketchy! Not only can you not access your stored credit card *unless you are purchasing another class*, you have to contact them to find out how to stop this from happening. Read that again. You do not have control over your credit card and billing, a. K. a. Thievery. I have to go to my bank and deny all charges going forward from Outschool and spend my time making sure every parenting group I belong to knows about these practices. Very archaic and making parent and guardian lives harder. There are plenty of better places for your kids to be learning. This is no ally for kids or families.

I've tried many classes here, most were excellent but in a few cases the instructor/class wasnt so great so sometimes can be a hit or miss but overall it is a great value

Loved our classes for my kid's violin interest. He earned so much and had a wonderful tutor! There are other lessons too but I didnt try them yet will update after trying