K-12 - Buyer Beware

Product: K12
Subject: History, Science, Language Arts, Spelling
Levels Used: Grade 4
Dates Used: 2009/2010

Likes: Vocabulary

Dislikes: Independent online courses, texts


My homeschooled daughter suffers from absolute boredom through most of these lessons. The student books offer little excitement. The teacher guides are confusing, and I often find myself flipping back and forth wondering if I am missing something.

My biggest frustration is that I am being charged monthly for online access to the Language Arts course that, thus far, offers only off-line lessons. When questioned, the K12 representative offered as justification for their fee, my use of the assessment portion of the Language Arts course -- a section in which I input how many offline questions my daughter answered correctly.

You're kidding, right?

When I tried to cancel the course, I was told that since it was after the initial 30 days from the date of purchase, there would be a $50 charge to downgrade from 3 online courses to 2, and that the downgrade would change my 1 year contract date for the remaining courses to begin from the date of the change, not from the original date those courses began. What?!

Finally, as a means to avoid the fee and the extended contract time, I reluctantly agreed to switch the third course to Foreign Language from Language Arts, which I chose only because it did not require that I purchase additional materials. I'm not sure I'll have time to fit in a new subject that I had no intention of broaching at this stage. So, for now I'll continue to pay monthly for 3 courses until my contract date is up, at which time it will be goodbye, good riddance.

You know, I usually determine the integrity of a person or business not by whether or not there were issues in our dealings, but how they handled themselves in the face of the issues. In my opinion, K12 was more interested in getting money out of me than finding a way to make my experience with them better. Otherwise this review might have been entitled something other than "Buyer Beware."