The Keystone School

My daughter wanted to take a language that wasn't offered at her public high school, so we signed her up at Keystone. She just finished German 1 and recently started German 2. She's very satisfied with both classes. My husband is fluent in German, he reviewed some of the lessons and says the material is accurate. There is a teacher assigned to the classroom. My daughter has contacted the teacher 3-4 times throughout the courses with questions and the teacher always responded within a day.

This program IS NOT EASY, but is on par with a high school level course. A typical course in a "brick and mortar" public school system is about 45 minutes a day for 180 days, and Keystone courses take just about the same amount of time. You need to complete all the lessons and assignments before the course is considered complete. The lessons are very comprehensive. The assessments are taken directly from learned material, so as long as the student takes notes and studies, they'll find the quizzes and tests to be relevant and of an appropriate degree of difficulty. Keystone uses "Blackboard" to deliver the course material, which is the same software most colleges use. I would definitely recommend Keystone.

We wanted to try homeschool for my daughter. We purchased 8th grade math from Keystone with the understanding that if she did well with online school, we would purchase the other courses needed for her classes. My daughter found errors in the first chapter; there was a math game that had the student "shoot" the correct answer. The problem was -4 x -5. My daughter hit 20 and was told she was wrong. She was told the correct answer was -9, which is only correct with addition -- not multiplication.

She then had a problem where the student was to change a mixed number into a fraction. The instructions said to multiply the denominator and numerator together and add the numerator. They later contradicted the original statement, saying correctly that you multiply the denominator by the whole number and add the numerator.

These are just two of the many examples of errors found in the materials. This company is now saying they will only refund a portion of the total cost, stating that my daughter already took some of the lessons. Give me a break. My 13-year-old child could teach this class better than the material we received. We reached out to find that our “teacher” was no longer working there. I emailed and then spoke to the “principal” who said that she would put in a “ticket” to correct the errors we found. When I asked why the teacher had not proofread the material I was told they did not have time to do so. My point is that the student is there to learn, not to correct the materials. I have had multiple conversations and emails and still just promises of refunds. Buyer beware!