The Keystone School Reviews

You can print a daily schedule based on your projected end date for the courses. It's not completely accurate, but in general works fairly well (it doesn't take into account the time you might need for a paper vs. a 5 question quiz). If your child cannot stay on task and gets behind, you do have an entire year to finish a course. However, if you are trying to finish it like a typical school year they can definitely run into problems if you are not supervising or your child is not motivated.

To give you a rough daily idea of what we're doing... he starts class between 7 and 8 am. He takes a little break between each, and works about an hour a day on each (they have 5 classes). He's done for the day around noon, and this is a schedule for him to complete the semester in 3 months (working Mon-Fri). It's great for kids in extracurricular activities, or those who work and need to change schedules around. As far as online schools go, I am very happy with the choice. People who complain about it likely wouldn't do well with any online school.

Teachers are prompt to respond to emails and you can call and get help asap during regular business hours. There are NO live classes to watch. The lessons do contain videos at times, but in general the middle school classes are materials the kids sit and read. They're organized and closely match or exceed the honors classes we switched from in our public schools.

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.

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!