Remote learning became prominent in the country as a result of the pandemic, and with more parents turning to homeschooling, one online learning program helped students stay on track and gave them renewed confidence in their studies.
The U.S. Census found with remote education becoming prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic, parents took an interest in introducing their children to online learning. In the beginning stages of the pandemic, 5.4% of families opted for home schooling and by the fall that number jumped to 11.1%.
Parents had to find the right pace at which their children could comfortably learn, and they often looked for programs that met their child’s learning style and pace.
Acellus Academy, an accredited, online educational program, is well-versed in remote education.
Acellus is a private online school that personalizes learning and has flexible, rigorous material geared toward helping students excel at home education.
One parent, John Nibarger, who had multiple struggling students, also struggled himself to find a suitable online program for his sons.
He said his sons were having behavioral issues in public school and “the association of school and learning was bad.”
“My sons were lacking the confidence in themselves to faithfully build on their education and it was hurting their ability to learn,” Nibarger said.
Nibarger said none of the online learning programs that he considered for his children seemed to stick for him and his family.
“Most methods were not getting us where we needed to be,” he said.
Seeing his sons begin falling behind, Nibarger enrolled them into Acellus Academy. The Academy, on its website, indicates that over 6,000 public schools across the country are using its program.
Acellus Academy’s high school program allows students to graduate with a diploma from an accredited online school, and its core courses have been approved by the NCAA. Its site shows the NCAA Eligibility Center. Each Acellus course is self-paced for students, allowing students to master each lesson and spend extra time if needed. In addition, families have the flexibility to plan study times to fit into their schedules.
Acellus describes its approach as a personal learning process and aligns its curriculum to match the learning pace and education needs of each student.
For Nibarger, his sons had a limited desire to learn and he was unsure how the Acellus program could provide education benefits for them.
Acellus uses real-life situations to restore interest in learning and it also aims to improve the desire to learn by accentuating the importance of each lesson to either daily circumstances or potential future employment.
Nibarger’s sons accelerated their learning pace after being encouraged by this approach, and he said that his sons’ interest in learning was tied to gaining confidence in the learning process.
“They were able to use Acellus’ video-based format to learn what they weren’t previously understanding,” Nibarger stated.
His sons increased their learning pace by isolating their own challenges, and they managed to exceed their previous public school performance.
“As soon as they got some confidence, they wanted to learn more and more,” Nibarger said.
Even more impressive, is what initially took a day to learn could now be accomplished in about two hours.
The Nibarger family has remained with Acellus Academy.
“We went from academic stagnation to my son graduating high school in under two years,” Nibarger said, adding that using Acellus provided his sons the opportunity to get full academic credit and achieve a higher GPA.
“Acellus’ ability to really push my sons’ education was incredible,” he said. “Confidence had never been reinforced, but now it has because David had the incentives to want to learn. It was something he had never experienced, and because of that, he was a completely different person.”
According to Nibarger, Acellus Academy has the right amount of accountability for an independent online school that cannot be found elsewhere.
“By taking advantage of Acellus Academy, we could see the light at the end of the tunnel. It only makes me wish we came across it sooner,” he said.