Alpha & Omega Ignite Academy Review
The academy is run by a long-standing homeschool book publisher
Alpha and Omega Ignite Academy is run by “Alpha and Omega Publishers”. They also produce the book packs, “Switched on Schoolhouse”, “Lifepack”, and “Horizon”, and the online program, “Monarch”. So, in essence, “Alpha and Omega Publishers” have tried to fulfill each variant of homeschool by addressing families that need book packs, ones that want online, and ones that want academies.
To a limited degree, Alpha and Omega Academy allows students to choose what curriculum they will use from the ones produced by Alpha and Omega Publishers. So for lower grades, they can choose between Lifepack and Horizons. Middle grades, the choices are Ignitia or Lifepack. And higher grades are Ignitia only. When we inquired what Ignitia is like, a worker at the company told us that it was basically Monarch curriculum that has been converted to academy needs. Certain subjects are available in only one type of curriculum. For example: In second grade, students can be in either Horizons or Lifepack for Math and Language Arts, but they must be in Lifepack for the other three subjects.
Information about the platform is limited without purchasing tuition
We do not have any first-hand experience with Alpha and Omega Academy because the parents of students that we were observing ruled them out as a homeschooling platform that would fit their needs. We did attempt to obtain information from them about their platform for one of our staff’s students, however, they refused to allow their platform to be seen until the student paid for tuition. When we asked questions, they were vague, and would not give us a whole lot of detail beyond simply repeating what is on their website.
Homeschooling publishers can often times be highly protective of what they consider their trade secrets because at this point in history, homeschooling is growing exponentially. Therefore, there is quite a lot of money to be made from sales of materials, subscriptions, or enrollment. In the case of Alpha and Omega Publishers, they are a business that has held a large portion of the market for many years. They are not run by a college, like many of the academies. Right now, many homeschooling academies are trying to obtain trade secrets from each other in order to better their own services. So, we understand the secrecy. However, for the purpose of producing a review that could possibly bring customers to them, this presents a bit of a problem because we do not honestly feel confident about recommending them since we could not see what they actually offer or how they work.
We also did a lot of online research to try to find a sample video of the actual learning platform so we would have some idea what the academy would look like to a student. We found lots of advertising “hype” from Alpha and Omega, but what we did not find was actual images of the product in use and reviews from parents using it.
Live teacher on video and available for contact
Here is what we do know about Alpha & Omega Academy.
We did speak with a family by email that had used them. They told us that the academy is not very intereactive and would not work well for a child with ADHD. They also indicated that parents would need to be very active in the actual teaching as well.
We also know that Monarch is not the best curriculum, and they do use Monarch for some of their classes. Monarch consists of long reading passages with crude graphics. Our experience, to be blunt, is that Monarch is extremely boring and difficult to follow. See our full Monarch review. Now, it may be that if they have a live instructor, it could offset some of the problems with Monarch. But we are a little confused as to what they mean by live teacher.
Their website says teachers are available via phone during specific “office hours”, online meetings, and messaging. Most classes are not live. Rather, a student watches a pre-recorded video. The student can watch the video any time of the day, so the content is very flexible. In their academy video Alpha and Omaga says that “sometimes” students “may” be in a real-time class where they can interact live with the teacher and students. We do not know how that works or if it is available in every class. It does not sound like the live classes are very often, so parents interested in this aspect should ask the academy about this specifically.
What we know about them
Alpha and Omega breaks its pricing up by grade. For grades 1-5 (4 subjects) – $1592.00, For grades 6-8 (5 subjects) – $1992.00, For grades 9-12 – $2392.00. They do offer a per-month payment plan.
Previously, students had to enroll in the full year of classes, but they are now advertising that students can take only a few classes.
Alpha and Omega has flexible start dates, so a student can start any month, but he/she will have to start on one of the specific start dates for that month.
Alpha and Omega is a Christian curriculum with Christian elements in all of the subjects.
They are accredited through Cognia and they keep transcripts. They issue a diploma to students that complete their academy through the 12th grade.
Currently, the academy has a little over 3000 students enrolled in 49 countries, which is a lower number than many of the academies.
Alpha and Omega Academy offers a “Career and Technology” tract option for students planning to go directly into the workforce after high school. Their website says, “AOA’s CTE courses are divided into 14 career clusters, including Architecture & Construction; Arts, A/V Technology, & Communication; Business Management & Administration; Education & Training; Finance; Government & Public Administration; Health Science, Human Services; Information Technology; Manufacturing; Marketing; Middle School; STEM; and Transportation, Distribution, & Logistics.”
You can reach their website at: www.aoacademy.com.
Our review - we cannot recommend without seeing platform
Because we have never seen Alpha and Omega Academy in action we cannot give a review, but here is our opinion.
We find it extremely odd that the company will not let us see their platform in action without paying for tuition for a student. That is not typical for most academies that want students.
Their marketing materials sound good, but we are somewhat skeptical without seeing the platform, because the concept of a live teacher and live classes can take on many forms. Many of these “big player” academies have strong marketing departments.
When we asked questions, they were very vague with their answers, so much so, that we were reluctant to enroll a student with them.
Lifepac and Horizon Book Packs have been around for a while and are used by a lot of homeschooling families. They seem to be relatively decent curriculums for elementary school. Monarch is not a platform we recommend. We have never seen Ignitia, and they told us we could not see the platform unless we paid for tuition. An employee told us Ignitia is similar to Monarch.
Monarch is extremely outdated, so our concern is obviously that the material used in the academy could be that way as well, though we do not know if that is the case.
Our personal opinion is that we would not enroll a student in Alpha & Omega Academy unless we could see and use the platform ahead of enrollment to see if it is a good fit for the student.
