Fiona took some online Grade 10 courses this semester: PE and Personal & Career Planning. She took them partly because she wanted these required credits out of the way so that she can focus next year on the academic courses that she’s excited to dive into. But we also figured they would be a good introduction to course-like structure, assignments, quizzes, working directly with a teacher, getting grading and dealing with “writing to task.”

We like it when our DL program doesn’t cramp our style. Benign neglect it good to a point. But there’s a basic difference between a child-centred, parent-facilitated individualized learning program at home that is benignly overseen by a DL teacher, and an online course delivered by the DL program where assignments are submitted directly to the teacher. In this case Fiona was submitting things and getting nothing back: no feedback, no grading, not even any acknowledgement that things had been received.

A week ago we received Fiona’s report card. Her grades in her online courses were based on course records like the one on the left. Marks are shown in the third numerical column: only four assignments show up as having been graded. These assignments were done in the first couple of weeks of the semester and were graded in April a few days before a meeting that I requested on Fiona’s behalf to check in. By the end of the year nothing more had been marked. The other course has no grades showing at all. And yet Fiona submitted every last assignment.

As it got close to year-end, I had stepped in again and nudged the teacher, reminding her that Fiona had submitted lots, courses were completed, and asking whether she needed anything further. No, the teacher replied, she was reviewing all Fiona’s blog submissions and the assignments in the online courses, and everything looked great.

When her report card came, her grades for her two online courses showed up as “100%” and “Incomplete” respectively. When I questioned the Incomplete, the teacher took a look again in the online course, presumably noticed the other 19 assignments and quickly changed it to an A with “Well done” in the written comments section.

In what world is this considered an appropriate amount of feedback for a lifelong unschooler submitting her first-ever written assignments for the express purpose of gauging her readiness for a heavy academic program the following year? The government paid our school district $800 to administer each of those clunky courses. Is this really the kind of educational value for money that the taxpayer (or student!) expects?

I expect this was a one-off situation. Certainly our experience in other DL programs, and in this DL program during different years and with different teachers, has been much more positive, much more diligent, responsive, supportive. The School District superintendent, whom I’ve written to, was as appalled as I was about the oversights and I’m sure nothing like this will happen to anyone else. Not least because the teacher in question is leaving. But it sure wasn’t a great way to go out.