Laurel Springs School Reviews

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Virtually no interaction with a Teacher your child is expected to learn from videos and links. Teachers not showing up to their virtual room no mirroring my daughters screen or zoom to help her. Teachers in different time zones with sometimes very early or late hours. Feedback and direction via vague emails. Our math tutor with a PHD and taught at the college level had a hard time understanding the assignments. If your child is good being completely on their own teaching themselves and learning from youtube videos, links and vague instruction you will be fine. Otherwise I wouldn't waste my money. My daughter is now repeating the 9th grade after spending a year this program. That is how bad she wanted to leave the program that she was willing to repeat her grade. You would think my daughter would be ahead as she is repeating the same grade but, she's not, she learned virtually nothing. It was a waste of a year and I'm sorry I signed her up.

As a parent of a child with anxiety, we spent an entire year trying to learn in an autonomous learning setting without any guidance for a child with Generalized Anxiety Disorder at $16,000 a year. When we asked if we could make up her Physical Education class over the summer, we were asked to re-enroll for another $800 and when she had a hard time finishing, we spent another $100 to extend the end date. At the end of the summer, she became very ill with COVID and couldn’t finish the class but they would not give another extension. I was very disappointed in how the situation was handled. The teacher was great but the administration needs to learn to accommodate children with disabilities. They knew that the PE course was the only class that she needed to graduate on time.

The school is very disorganized. Often teachers and clubs don't attend their meetings and the students end up sitting there waiting. The school also has secret policies that they don't print or share with the parents. Most of the showcased iClasses are repeats every month, so there really isn't anything for the students to do after seeing them the first time. The iClasses are cameras-off and only chat can be used, so it is not helping the students socially. Finally, the lessons have so many grammatical errors that it is nearly criminal neglect.

While this system might work for some this is the most miserable school year ive had. I went from being a happy student always ready to learn to a bitter one due to the constant work from the courses that is extremely tedious . Trust me that once you have done one assignment for a class at laurel springs you have done all of them because they are pretty much the same thing. Some teachers are terrible at communicating and some are decent. The math course has a ridiculous amount of work load and the foreign language class it the worst I have ever taken. For the amount of money you pay for this course trust me that you are being ripped off. If you want to teach yourself everything, not have any social outlets and be constantly bombarded with work then Laurel Springs is the place for you. Otherwise, you are much better off finding another school. I would also like to add that all the courses laurel springs has are bought from Florida Virtual or other online courses.

This school may be good for some but I have had a terrible experience. I haven’t learned a thing and when I am clearly having trouble instead of helping the teacher gives me a zero and says redo it. In there comments they say that “You completed all the parts of this activity very well but I don’t like your phrasing”. This is not how you teach kids thats not helpful try helping. And don't even get me started on how hard it is to learn a foreign language without a teacher and math. Overall terrible experience don't recommend to anyone.

Like all the other parents who scream highway robbery, I agree. After two agonizing years of this crap, still my student will not finish high school on time. Any support provided is pure malarkey and a bunch of talk to keep you tagged in to collect tuition. It is irresponsible to assign teachers and counselors across the other time zone whereby a student does not in fact gain access for support at reasonable hours. They do a very poor job of assigning teachers within the same time zone when they can do this but they don't. You are much better off taking online courses with AP/Honors and dual enrollment at a junior college than paying the exorbitant tuition at LSS, regardless of what colleges they are able to connect you with. I think your student will do just as well or better without the headache of unreasonably high tuition. They are little to no diversity - in all the two years my student has never had a teacher of color and there are little to no students of color. Gifted student!

Terrible experience. The Curriculum was fine, however the support is awful and the teachers are very little help. We were lead to believe that teachers would be much more accessible and helpful. My daughter's algebra teacher's office hours for example were 4am to 6am. Do not believe the sales pitch, your kid will get very little support, and the system is clunky and hard to navigate. My daughter's grades were A's and B's and again the curriculum was fine, but the cost is absolute highway robbery for what you get. You would be much better off home schooling as you get very little support for your money anyway. Perhaps high school is better and maybe they offer some benefit for college acceptance, but the middle school is a ripoff. I feel taken advantage of and lied too.

I was led to believe that I would not need a learning coach or tutor which was completely wrong- I even have it in writing. LS refused to refund me the majority of what I paid (close to $1000) and my daughter had to completely restart at her new online school after our withdraw. There is no app, and the software is outdated, it also has glitches- expect to redo assignments and completely redo recordings because of it (I recommend purchasing a separate voice recorder altogether). The teacher has very limited hours and the only time I tried to ask a different teacher for support through their support system, they referred me back to the main teacher to have the question answered. After realizing that I was paying more for a school with very limited support, I decided to switch to a less expensive option and have been happy ever since.

Horrible School system, you will regret so much don't try. They just tell you when is the dead line of the end date and no communication what's so ever then they will tell you only in one sentence saying you fail.
We did 3 years but it was awful experience, it is nightmare.
Teachers and faculty will never reach out to you unless you ask and
parents would not know anything, don't make mistake.

The curriculum is poorly constructed. In math, they dont introduce building blocks that lead up to a complex topic. Instead, they throw the complex topic and let the academic coach figure it out. Often one assignment should be broken up to three, sometimes four assignments so you fall behind on the schedule. My child started out loving math yet came to hate it by the end of the year with Laurel Springs. English is similar. No writing, no critical thinking, just multiple choice questions. They advertise cursive but only do about 1 assignment per month. No reimforcement. The learning management is poorly constructed. The assign activities without consideration of the time and prep it will take. On some days they will assign 4 tests which clearly overwhelms the studends. Wrote a letter to the president of Laurel Springs and he never responded. My kid is at Keystone and its far superior for a fraction of the price. Some teachers communicate alot. Some never responded to a single email.

My experience is with the online school. Teachers have too many students. The cost is expensive for your student to learn the material on their own. The teacher lectures do not coincide with the unit your student is studying because of varying start times. We only used the teachers when grading was an issue. I tutored my sons in math. The AP classes are horrible. They do not prepare the student. My son went to public school his senior year and was thoroughly prepared for his AP Calculus BC, AP Economics and AP Physics exams.

My daughter attended LS for 3rd grade. It was an absolute disappointment. Maybe it's better for higher grades but I would caution parents to consider other schools for lower grades. There is VERY limited actual instruction and the projects often require materials that just aren't usually available plus the content is BORING and dated. The fact that they taught how great the Texas Rangers were was an indication that their content is outdated. I am honestly a little worried about how my daughter will fare in 4th grade.

no communication, repetitive work , copy paste feedback always the same. Long wait for responses and grading. 7k for a class where you learn nothing its 2020 and the classes feel like they were created in 2002 on a brick.

There is far more work than in brick and mortar private schools and the excessive number of assignments make the material harder to learn. Language assignments number 10/day. Math text is often confusing. Teachers have limited availability as they have other jobs. Some will help clarify a subject and others will only answer brief questions in their office hours. Students who are stuck on a math problem cannot expect to get assistance from the LSS live math lab. Tests often include material not covered in the readings. Text based version is completely different from the online class version. If you have students with different learning styles, there is very little differentiation between honors vs regular courses. Despite the number of clubs available there is little real opportunity for social interactions. Tuition is excessive given the limited live support/teaching provided. I would not recommend this school.

Laurel Springs is a phenomenally bad school. First of all, the academics are at least 3 grades too easy. If a 9th grade course covers the same things as a 6th grade course, we know something's wrong. Second, if you go here, prepare to have no social life. They say they have several social events, but they're spoofing you. Third, the teachers don't help you. You can't even talk to them if you need help. Fourth, the extracurriculars are weak. I'd rate it a 0 if I could.

I have had the worst experience. My teachers have falsely graded my work. I do the work to get 100 and then I get 16, 33 or 50 because I didn't answer one question or I didn't give them what they wanted when they ask me to add more when the rubric doesn't say the I need my paper or project to big a certain length. The discussions are frustrating to deal with they ask you what the most difficult thing that you learned , how did you find a way to not make it difficult, where in the real world will you use what you learn. You can only turn in thing twice then you have to email your teacher to re open it and you are told that the teacher will not respond for 2-3 days. There is a lot of readings very little videos they are scarce. Some classes take you to other websites. When I started my language it said lesson 1 then it took me to another website and I did the first lesson then I didn't find out that 1 lesson equals 5 on the other website. If you are a parent I am tring to warn you.

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