New Enrollment Dates

Enrollment in elementary, 4th - 6th grade, is open until August 30th.
Enrollment in 7th - 12th grade is open for asynchronous courses until August 30th.

Asynchronous Program Description

Our asynchronous courses use the same format as the QHA scheduled online courses, but in-lieu of live classes, recorded sessions are provided so the student can view them at a convenient time. Since correspondence type courses have a high failure rate, QHA asynchronous courses counteract that failure rate by requiring due dates for homework, quizzes, discussion, and assessments. Teachers are available for help via email, and if needed, teachers and students can arrange to meet using live video conferencing.

Included in each course are the following:

• Lesson plans
• Assessments with specific due dates (quizzes, chapter tests, and quarterly exams)
• Teacher-guided discussion boards with specific due dates
• Once or twice weekly prerecorded class sessions 
• Communication with teachers via email

Elementary Program Description

Our elementary courses (4th - 6th grade) are parent-directed. A parent-directed course is primarily taught by the parent using various ancillary materials (videos, documents, pictures, etc.) along with the course texts. Courses are grade-level appropriate so some require minimal help from the parent while others require more parental involvement. For example, the reading comprehension courses need minimal parental teaching - the students are assigned pages to read and then they take an online quiz to test comprehension. The language arts courses need more parental involvement as the parent would go over the grammar concept for the week and check the worksheet with an answer key. If a parent has questions about the material or needs assistance, the director of the elementary program, Mr. Pierce, is available.

Our 7th - 12th grade courses are real-time, interactive courses where classmates and the teacher meet together on a specific day and at a specific time. We use all aspects of technology (audio, video, text, whiteboard, etc.) during the live sessions. Elementary classes do NOT have live interactive sessions. Students should plan to spend 30 minutes per day on each course in which they are enrolled. Part of that 30 minutes will be online and part offline. [Note that at each grade level more courses are added. Since elementary students need and should have time offline for studies, (penmanship, reading aloud, music, art, P.E. etc.) less courses are offered at the lower grade levels. As the student matures and less offline study is needed, courses are added to the higher grade levels. Elementary students also do not have the typing skills needed for real-time interaction or long essay assignments.]

All elementary courses have weekly online and auto-scored quizzes. After submission, the quiz grade is automatically entered into the course grade book. In order to build some flexibility and accountability into the elementary program, assignments are open monthly. A student has 30 days to submit assignments but at the same time, assignments are given weekly due dates during the month as well. Students can use the dues and strive to submit them on the weekly due date but if more time is needed, the 30-day deadline can be used. The elementary director sends reminders to the parent in our Monday morning email which tells the parent the student's current grade in the course as well as reminders that the monthly due date is approaching. At the mid-month point, zeros are entered for assignments that were not submitted for the 1st two weeks of the month. The student can replace the zeros with a score if the assignment is submitted before the end of the month. This system allows flexibility while also providing accountability. The parent is always aware of how their student is doing and what needs to be turned in before the end of the month. Of course, the parent can log into the course management system 24/7 and view all grades as well as course content and assignments.

The elementary program does not have formal writing instruction; however, the history, reading comprehension, and science courses have small writing assignments (3 - 5 sentences) that the student posts to the course management system. After posting, the writing assignment is corrected by the teacher and entered into the grade book. Students can also read their classmates' work after they post their own work. The parent would need to assist their student with the writing assignment to make sure the student uses complete sentences as well as proper word usage, grammar, and punctuation.

In preparation for the junior high program, we recommend mature 6th-grade students enroll in one live interactive course: History 7; PreLatin/Spanish; Roman, Life, and History.

One exception is Math 4. We are transitioning our elementary math program to Kumon Math. We are making recordings that the student can watch before doing the math homework. Our plan is to transition Math 5 in 2021-2022 and Math 6 in 2022-2023.