Forest Trail Academy Reviews 199

Slightly more than average

Excellent online school. Curriculum is at or above grade level and self paced. Easy to use platform. Great for both gen. ed and ese students.

Forest Trail provided a very challenging college preparatory program for our son. The instructors were readily available to answer questions and the administrators helped with concerns or questions we had. The emphasis on writing was excellent and served our son well in college. The math and science classes have greatly helped our son with his commercial airline pilot training that he is currently taking. We are grateful to have found Forest Trail Academy, and we can confidently recommend it to families searching for an online high school program.

i rate 3 because it help my kid to learn at the same time is hard because they just start to learn online so is really helping.

I'm glad to have the right education for my daughter. The teachers always gives the right feedback and explain the results in all assigments, quizzes and tests. They really care about her.

my son attended online for about a year approximately 6 or 7 years ago. i don't know why they are now asking for me to review their program, but i will spend a few minutes to enlighten folks . he found his history program was directly copied from an online college course. he was able to google needed answers to coursework without bothering to use the school programs/activities in this course and the spanish course. the only class worthwhile, in my opinion, was the english course . he had to write is own papers, though, to be truthful, i don't know if he could have skated through this too if he'd tried.
he was able to work the courses at his pace, but really had no contact with live /online teachers. this worked as he could not attend on a schedule. still, i think there are much cheaper and better programs available to the public these days. would not recommend.

FTA were very accommodating in getting my daughter’s curriculum organized for the second half of her 11th Year - it was quite a mission to find out how to fill in the gaps!! She navigated the system easily, enjoyed the classes and received prompt feedback. The only downside was we have still not received any sort of report/certificate verifying her achievements - despite a number of requests...

First of all, I've read several reviews of Forest Trail Academy. You have to know what an online school IS before you read reviews on it. Online schools have prepared curriculum that contain a lot of reading, writing and some videos to teach your child. That said, you will still be responsible as the parent to help your child if they need it. Forest Trail Academy has teachers, yes, but online schools are NOT like brick and mortar schools where you send them, they learn everything and you help here and there. Online schools are going to require more input and time from the parents so, know this before you read this whiney reviews that say it was too much work for their kid and it was hard to follow.

Now, the reviews where they didn't get refunds or didn't read the small print that they had a week to try it out before they could no longer receive a refund. When I signed up, my guy reminded me THREE times about the refund window. Also, stop comparing this to a brick and mortar private school. All of the Forest Trail Academy curriculum is given to you once you pay for it so basically, it's a one-stop shop. You pay, you get the whole burrito, not bites of it. Read before you sign stuff and don't complain about it.

Now, as for my experience with Forest Trail Academy. My son did second grade with Forest Trail and being that I was brand new to homeschooling, it was fantastic. I'm a web developer so while broken links were a bit annoying, I reported them and would find other things my kid to use instead whenever possible. The broken images and links though is my biggest complaint. They need to have someone reviewing the curriculum at least every 6 months if not every quarter to make sure that links aren't broken because if I hadn't stepped in and taught my son some of the material, he would have been unable to complete the assignments.

For the second grade year, I feel it was a good balance of everything. I think more instruction in math might be helpful before the worksheets would be good. My son excels at math so it wasn't a huge issue for him, but I still had to step in sometimes to help and saw that there wasn't much instruction on the topic. So I feel the amount of knowledge is great and the variety is there.

Brain Pop Jr was the best part of this year; engaging my child. Doing more things like that if you're not going to have videos explaining topics is good. More hands-on activities would also help.

Overall, I am satisfied with Forest Trail and I have considered reupping but being that we're new to homeschooling, we're going to try a more traditional approach for third grade. I'm planning to revisit Forest Trail for either middle school or high school.

Go into online schooling with the knowledge that there will be a lot of reading, work, and yes, you as a parent will also need to help out sometimes.

Forest Trail Academy is an amazing online school. My daughter has been able to learn a lot and do work at her own pace which is very convenient.

My son was having trouble in public education, because of their unwillingness to modify work for him. He was on medicine for headaches and stomach pain. When we started using FTA for his homeschool he dropped 2 medicines and no more headaches! The teachers are wonderful and accommodating. We are very pleased!

School was difficult to deal with and provided poor learning materials.

Forest Trail Academy was the educational program that kept our granddaughter at grade level for the two years she was at Pacific Life Therapeutic Boarding School. She actually graduated a semester early high school & is now in a local college program.

This was a fantatsic program. The courses were excellent content and prepared my daughter for college.

The curriculum and instructors were above adequate for the price except for math. The lessons had no connection to the tests. The instructor was unavailable and communication was impossible. Kahn academy, a tutor and our child’s motivation got her through math. The other instructors were pleasant and pushed her to excel. Recommend a complete revamp on the math and instructor.

This is a great program for children who have extracurricular activities and need to do schoolwork outside the normal school hours and cannot attend a “brick and mortar” school. My daughter was enrolled for one and one-half years, was challenged by the academic programs, and did well. Also, whenever I needed to talk to someone at the school to resolve various issues, the school representative resolved everything to my satisfaction each time.

My child is happier, less stressed and has finally found his learning pace since we decided to try FTA. Teachers are supportive and know how to give the child assertive feedback that encourages further learning and improvement.

My 13 year-old daughter is having a good experience. The teachers are encouraging and give her helpful feedback.

My son was able to get a quality online education. I thought his curriculum was on par with others in his grade level who attended traditional school. The teachers were responsive and answered our questions/concerns. Other administrative staff were available as well.

My daughter went to high school at Forest Trail Academy and graduated this past year. First of all the administration is fantastic they always respond to your questions and concerns quickly!
It's a challenging program but prepares students very well for College! The work is mainly independent but this also prepares students since they have to study independently in college.
The web site for students was also beneficial since they can keep up with classes and messages from teachers etc. We really liked the self paced program so it's up to the student and parents as to how fast the classes are completed. Overall a great program! Our daughter received straight A's in her first semester in college.
We are really happy our daughter attended and graduated from Forest Trail Academy!

Schooling was so easy, my son loved that he could learn at his own pace and time, and having the teacher so easily availabe, made the process so much more doable.