Question Pertaining To An Online School Dilemma - Graduation, Illness And More!

[dadoftwodadoftwo]

My son has been a straight a student for all four years of high school. He has also done a lot of volunteering and he has participated in clubs and activities. He has been awarded a scholarship that is valued at almost 90k for his academics. The problem is that he got very sick his junior year and wound up at the Mayo Clinic several times. He missed a lot of school, all for good reason. He was diagnosed and now is recovering - that is the good news. The bad news is that because of being sick, and our fear that public school would not allow for him to have time to heal, we enrolled him in the 'best' online school in the US. All was fine until Spanish III. Because this Spanish experience and expectations are not contiguous with his previous learning AND because there is absolutely NO teaching whatsover with this course (he doesn't even get to know the mistakes from his tests or homework, he even tried re-submitting a homework assignment that he got a 'd' on and the teacher said, "I don't accept re-do's". My son told him that he was just wanting to know if he was now doing it right. The teacher told him to email him but did not help him by re-grading. There are no lectures, there are no word lists to memorize, there are no study guides - even when asking for them. The book and the assignments are all that there are. Then, for the midterm and final - you can study the whole text (online text) in order to somehow pass these tests. He has failed once, re-taken it again, is on the verge of failing again (we will find out today) - and, has already taken the course once, given a failing grade (with no teaching), took the course again - worked on every homework assignment and has an a- average on this copious volume of work, taken notes (all on his own) on this entire book - which has taken up a whole notebook and hours and hours, he has taken other teacher's tests for Spanish 3 on quizlet and gotten mostly 90-100 percent on all tests. Then, he takes the midterm, gets a 52, exercises his re-take option and, guess what - he gets a 52 again - even after studying for over 30 more hours! He got exactly the same grade - it seems impossible! The teacher is not providing any guidance, help, teaching, advise etc. He grades the assignments, writes a comment or two on some and that is it! It is, afterall, a foreign language - so, he should memorize, verbatim, an entire foreign language text? So, he took the final and now we are waiting to hear his fate - he cannot graduate with the honors diploma, that he must have to get the scholarship, without spanish 3. He already took ten courses extra because he transferred to this online school and his grade, in this spanish course is really subject to how critical the teacher has chosen to be (it is only 1/3 multiple choice). What should we do? He is already one semester late for the scholarship that was awarded to him. If we have him get the Spanish from another source (if we can find one) - he will have to do that and take one more course from this online school. If he wants to graduate from this online school, he will have to take one more course anyway because they have their minimums. My son has tried so hard to achieve but, with no support whatsoever (I am not exaggerating - there is no class, no lectures - no conversations, no helpful emails - nothing!!!!!) and highly critical grading! Ultimately, he will likely lose the scholarship and opportunity over no more than 10 points total in a Spanish class. This has all been explained to the 'teacher' - he says (when asked for extra credit, a project, anything - to make up some ground - "NO" - I don't offer that.) To me, life is not about the few points, it is about the learning experience. My son furnished the teacher with volumes of extra work and preparation that he did on his own and created on his own to no avail. Help? We tried the principal of the online school and he forwarded our concerns to the teacher.

[woofgang]

well I think you are in the US and this is a UK site but have you read through the terms and conditions of the course that you have purchased? If they are giving you what you have paid for then I think you are stuck with it, if they aren’t then is there any kind of governing body they are accredited by who could help?

[xstitcher]

If this is the only part that is letting you down, what about a tutor?