Calendar

Our semesters follow the Olathe schools calendar, with our quarters and semesters aligning with those of our five high schools. The summer term is eight weeks in length. Click here to see specific eAcademy semester schedules.

Course Design

• Courses are accredited through District Curriculum Coordinators, who assure content is aligned to district and state curriculum standards.
• Courses are taught or supervised by experienced teachers certified in the content area by the Kansas State Department of Education.
• Courses utilize the Olathe School Board adopted curriculum and instructional materials for each subject area.
• All courses can be accessed from any computer with Internet access. eAcademy is not accessible on mobile devices.

eAcademy uses Moodle, a web-based course management system, to deliver content for most courses. Courses are designed by Olathe teachers certified in the subject content area, and are maintained by the instructors of the various courses. Courses are aligned with the Board-adopted Olathe Public Schools’ traditional classroom curriculum and contain content that has been modified for electronic instruction. eAcademy may also integrate online course content provided by textbook companies and other sources using supplemental course management tools.

Occasionally, the district will adopt a textbook that has the majority of activities built into the textbook site. Computer Applications uses Cengage (NGL-SYNC) for the majority of instruction, as a supplemental learning management system. Turn-It-In is a plagiarism prevention tool used in Olathe and some instructors require students to submit all assignments in TII where grades and feedback are then posted. Edgenuity, a web-based automated curriculum, is used for the health course. These are specific examples of eAcademy's use of supplemental course management tools.

Attendance

Courses do not have live lectures or scheduled class time. Students work independently in Moodle (or Edgenuity). Courses will begin with a required startup meeting via Zoom on the first day of the term. After that, instructors will schedule weekly or bi-weekly class sessions for review, assignment instruction, student questions, and other course functions. However, these sessions are optional. There is not a daily attendance requirement but students should work on their course daily in order to maintain consistent progress. They may also work ahead as much as they like, but instructors may not grade particular assignments until the due date. During the school year, students will spend about five hours per week or an hour per day in the classroom plus homework time in any given course, and we expect the same time commitment for our online eAcademy courses.

Students in our summer program often have scheduled vacations, camps, etc. that cause them to be away from eAcademy for a brief period of time. We ask that students work ahead in order to meet the published schedule of course deadlines, and not just try to catch up when they return. Students can work from anywhere they have internet access so many work on their course away from home while traveling. Absences should be communicated to the instructor in advance. Because students are compacting approximately eighteen weeks of work into an eight-week summer session, the time commitment will generally be two or more hours per day per course.

Grading

eAcademy follows the Olathe Public Schools secondary grading guidelines. All courses are graded using the standard scale: 100-90% = A; 89-80% = B; 79-70% = C; 69-60% = D; an F will be transcribed for students who achieve below 60% or fail to complete their online course. School-year course drops may be allowed for serious family life events that would be considered hardship situations. Summer courses may be dropped at any time but with no fee refund.

Courses use online gradebooks (not in StudentVue) and that is where students will find assignment and assessment grades as well as any grading feedback from their instructor. Parents may view the gradebook and teacher feedback by having their student log into their course and show them the gradebook.

PE

Students taking online PE must wear a Polar heart monitor to complete required workouts which are uploaded to their PolarFlow account on the web. There are also additional required textbook assignments in Moodle. Click here to visit our PE page for more PE information.

Final

Each course has some form of final assessment. These range from tests to projects to final papers, reflection papers, and other options that allow each student to demonstrate their cumulative course knowledge. The final assessment was always in-person until Covid when we switched to a virtual format. Each year we review the advantages and disadvantages of assessment formats and may implement either method in future semesters.