Any experience with the Alta Indepenent online high school?

August 15, 2015 5:24 PM

I am trying to help a friend decide whether the online high school Alta Independent - altaindependent.com - is right for her son.

Hi MeFi-ers!
I am trying to help a friend decide whether Alta Independent - altaindependent.com - is right for her son.
He had trouble with the instruction at another online school, Laurel Springs - http://laurelsprings.com/high-school/ . The online texts they used weren't so helpful for him.

To give specifics, if they're helpful: he's going into 11th grade, finished geometry (so probably doing Precalculus next year), and has a high bullshit detector - in other words, poorly designed online courses really turn him off. He'd rather learn than just click through a bunch of poorly-designed pages.

I'm looking for other reviews of Alta, but any feedback from parents/students would be most welcome! MeFiers have helped me in the past.

Thanks!

posted by snoe to Education (2 answers total)

Best answer: just poking around on the net i was surprised how little there is about this school, but did find that it was bought by daniel van cott who then decided to serve in a mormon mission (see linked site). i thought it odd that he is a relator, and not a teacher, but in fact he and his wife are both listed as teachers here (search for "cott" to find them). the school's registration was recently updated (the previous one expired end of june this year according to this site), so it seems to be an on-going concern, even though it's not clear who is managing it until daniel returns next june.

ps the registration site says enrolment is 200, so i don't think it likely anyone here will have used it.
posted by andrewcooke at 6:32 PM on August 15, 2015

I don't know anything about Alta, but my sister was enrolled for part of high school in Stanford's EPGY online high school, and she had an amazing experience. Classes were as interactive as an online school could be, and she participated in a lot of extracurriculars and academic competitions, particularly for math.
posted by lusitania at 7:32 AM on August 16, 2015