Onboarding

Make sure you have downloaded Zoom, installed it on a PC or Apple computer (rather than a phone, tablet, or Chromebook, as these do not have full functionality), and set up a quiet area where your student can participate in microschool activities. Create a space that is free from any distractions. Ideally, this should be the same space used daily for study to establish a healthy school routine.

Once downloaded and signed in, have your student test their microphone and video in Zoom to ensure they work properly, as well as the mute, video on/off, raise a hand, screen share, and chat functions. 

Make sure your student is familiar with Google Gmail, Documents, Drive, Sheets, and Slides, as they are used often in class. We will assist their learning of these applications, but they should come to class with some familiarity. 

For younger ages, a parent should supervise the student for the first day or until they feel comfortable that the student is autonomous.

Your onboarding process

While most students start on August 8th, we offer continuous enrollment, so you will notice students beginning class gradually up until Labor Day. Please let us know your preferred starting date on the Registration Form.

Your registration form is concise but thorough and should not take more than 5-10 minutes to complete. It requests important information required either at the state level or by your teacher.  It’s an opportunity for your teacher to get to know your student so they can better personalize activities before the first class meeting.

After you meet your selected teacher, we will receive confirmation from them that your student is a good fit for Brilliant Grades Microschools. We also ask that you confirm your interest, and you will receive an Enrollment Letter via email.

Before school starts, we will send you emails with important information, so there is no need to worry about not being ready! Make sure you have a good computer and a quiet space, and your student will be ready to participate in class!

Speaking of email–it’s important. Unless there is an urgent matter, we conduct all of our communication via email, especially the teachers, so check yours regularly. We would advise that your student have a separate email address they can check regularly. We recommend checking daily before and after class, as that is when emails are usually sent.

Teachers are trained to offer a warm and welcoming environment to new students. Classes will often start with comfortable activities that familiarize students with each other, with the teacher and to gain familiarity with different tools, systems, and learning techniques. We will then begin to support your student to extend their knowledge and skills to reach their personal learning frontier.

A few days after the meet and greet with your chosen teacher, your payment method will be charged with a downpayment so that we have your first month's tuition on file.

Curriculum, Materials, & Learning Outcomes

You will not need to buy expensive resources to participate in our program. Pens, pencils, paper, and standard office materials are all you need. We have designed a comprehensive, high-quality online curriculum that is mastery-based (meaning students progress when they have mastered a skill) and aligned to national CCSS standards. Our curriculum combines adaptive learning, direct instruction, group work, and projects and strongly emphasizes reading and writing.

We will make sure to identify your student’s learning gaps and fill them. Following our program closely will most likely result in the progress of more than one academic grade level in a year. Here is more information on our curriculum. Select the tab at the bottom that matches your student’s grade band (e.g., K-2nd, 3rd-5th, etc.).

Regarding grades and report cards, we at Brilliant Grades believe that the main purpose of assessments is to inform instruction, gauge how well students understand the content and define in what ways our teachers need to modify their pedagogy. This dialectic is the never-ending process that drives and evolves education. Therefore, we are more concerned about qualitative evaluations than quantitative ones, as they provide more information to direct our practices. Having stated that, we live in a world that does use quantitative data, such as when colleges evaluate applicants, and so when it is time to share the learning outcomes (AKA report cards) of our students,  which happens at the close of every term, we will provide both qualitative and quantitative information. This will include how well they meet a set of chosen power standards, personal comments from your teacher, and a letter grade. Although you will receive this information three times per year, it is a living document that is updated more often than that to reflect each student’s current level of performance, so please feel free to reach out to your teacher whenever you would like an update during the term.

Calendar

The calendar term dates are listed in the link below. National holidays are observed, and we can accommodate any religious or cultural holidays you subscribe to. We ask that you inform your teacher as soon as you know of any additional days off needed so that they may better prepare activities for that day.

Please see the school calendar here.

Meeting State Requirements

Brilliant Grades Microschools is registered as a private school in the State of Florida but can confidently meet the academic requirements of any state or district nationwide. If you are unsure what you need to do with your local state or district, please contact microschools@brilliantgrades.com, and we can help you. 

There is detailed information on what you need to do in each state on the website: https://hslda.org/ Some districts do not have clear guidelines, so we will be happy to reach out and ensure they receive exactly what is needed. Whether it’s a Notice of Intent, Individualized Home Instruction Plan, Quarterly Report, Annual Evaluation, Portfolio, or anything else, we can help you compile that documentation to ensure a smooth transition. We do ask for a minimum of 140 days of attendance, although this may be up to 180 days or more in a small number of states with such a requirement. 

Code of Conduct

We should all show up on time and respect each other.

During live class time, we should all avoid: making loud noises, multitasking on interests unrelated to the class content, eating food, and/or creating other distractions. The teacher will set appropriate breaks at their discretion to allow time for restroom visits and having a snack, usually every 50 minutes during class, so that we are attentive, undistracted, and respectful while we are live. If your student has a medical condition requiring frequent breaks, please inform your teacher before the start of the term, and accommodations will be made.

We may dress freely but always appropriately to foster a safe and focused learning environment. 

We must keep our cameras on and our names clearly visible in the Zoom participant panel at all times when class is in session. We should wear headsets during class hours and mute our microphones if there are any distracting sounds in the immediate environment.

We should respect different opinions expressed during class, avoid interrupting while another student or the teacher is speaking, and always try to be attentive, articulate, and thorough in our interactions with others. 

We should do our best to work diligently, complete all assigned tasks, contribute to class discussions, participate equally in any assigned group projects, and promote a general culture of respectful, active learning.

We keep personal information such as emails, phone numbers, and addresses private during class.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many students are in a Brilliant Grades microschool and how many hours do they meet?

Our classrooms have a total of 8-10 students for each teacher in our general education (GE) classrooms and 4-6 students in our exceptional student education classrooms (ESE). At the beginning of a term, you may even have fewer students, as we offer continuous enrollment; several students will start a few weeks after traditional schools start. The live classes meet in the morning for 3 consecutive hours for GE and 1.5 hours for ESE. The starting time varies by teacher, but classes will usually start sometime between 8 am and 11 am in your local time. 

Is Brilliant Grades Microschool a private school or a homeschool?

For administrative purposes that relate to your state or district reporting, we are currently a registered Private School, but you may wish to observe some of your local homeschooling laws. Feel free to reach out to us to gain specific advice. In general, you can ask us to fill out any required documents; we will happily help you fulfill your local requirements.

What do I need to do if we want to go back to public school next year?

You may need to complete certain paperwork, which we can help you with. For certain states and above a certain grade level, an examination may be needed. Please review this website (https://hslda.org/legal) and look into the details, then inform us of any support you need. If there is an examination, we can help your student prepare for it. If you wish for more guidance, our administrative team will happily reach out to your school district to understand the requirements needed.

A Brilliant Grades microschool meets for 15 live hours per week; what is missing versus a longer "traditional school" day?

As soon as someone describes our program to you, you may wonder how we achieve so much in so little time versus a traditional school. Many studies show that students progress a lot without spending 7-8 hours in school. We believe that, if followed faithfully for a full academic year, our program may provide 1.5-grade levels of growth for your student! Why is that? Firstly, in traditional schools, the amount of time lost in the transition between classes and learning tasks may be at least one hour per day. Secondly, the time lost due to students lacking focus in large classrooms is significant. Our small classrooms ensure much higher focus and retention. Finally, the GE Brilliant Grades program goes deep into core subjects such as ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies and uses interdisciplinary projects on Physical Education, Art, and Health (although teachers will often include interdisciplinary work that incorporates them). The ESE program focusing on core standards and life skills.

I know that you focus on ELA, Math, Science, and History/Social Studies. What about other subjects we need for school?

While we focus deeply on ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies alongside Language, Coding, and Art electives for GE, we also touch upon other subjects because lesson plans are often interdisciplinary or project-based. Our program is not designed to replicate public school 100% but to evolve it into the 21st century, offering an essential, engaging, and very effective academic experience. You may want to supplement the Brilliant Grades Microschools curriculum with additional sessions. If so, our tutoring division offers a lot of subjects, and you will benefit from a discount for tutoring sessions, so please reach out to us for more information.

How do electives work at Brilliant Grades?

Brilliant Grades Microschools offers 3 electives for GE: Art, Spanish, and Coding. These electives start on September 6th. Classes are led by professional Brilliant Grades tutors that meet once per week with a group of 3-10 students in a different Zoom room than the main microschool. Your meeting time and Zoom link will be communicated separately. If you’d like a greater variety of electives, we can offer them via the Brilliant Grades tutoring division.

Are there any textbooks or other materials that the teacher will require?

There will be no textbooks required, as all our materials are online. Regarding other supplies, parents are not required to buy any materials but may be advised if the students prefer to create a physical artifact for a certain project. Teachers have been asked to always recommend a digital alternative (eg. a digital poster) in case parents do not want to purchase materials. Finally, if the teacher believes that your student would personally benefit from additional supplies, they will contact you directly to make a recommendation. 

How does the Teaching Assistant Study Hall support work?

We offer access to a Teaching Assistant in the afternoon for al GEl students. A time slot and separate Zoom link will be communicated as soon as the TA office hours start. 

Please note that you are not required to access the Teaching Assistant daily. On the contrary, independent study is meant to develop students' self-directed study skills, which will be critical as they grow older. The teacher will make sure to scaffold independent work so that it is not too hard yet remains on the edge of students' comfort zones. This means that they will usually not need the additional assistance of the TA. 

It is absolutely fine and even desired if your student is temporarily frustrated and can't solve an exercise, they need to learn to recognize and work through these feelings. Even if they do not do their homework once or twice, it is not necessarily bad. The teacher will gradually teach them accountability and talk to you if they need your help to provide support and direction at home. When they want to seek assistance on their own, however, that is when they should log into the TA Zoom room at a predefined time to ask for assistance.

We increase/decrease TA time depending on popular demand, so your student may need to wait a few minutes to 'take their turn' while the TA is helping the prior student. The TA will be expected to provide short hints and guidelines or targeted pieces of advice. Longer sessions requiring greater needs, such as working through an entire math problem or helping to formulate an essay, should be kept for the teacher during normal live hours.

What happens if another student in a class is more or less advanced than mine?

It will surely be true that another student is more or less advanced in one subject or another. We try to design our mastery-based classrooms to reflect the diversity of the real world, including age and ability. Of course, together with the teacher, we have maintained a range of useful abilities so that the teacher feels comfortable managing the classroom. Tasks and assessments are designed to challenge each student differently according to their needs and skills. 

Our mastery-based learning environment follows a proven model in which students work as a class and on personalized learning pathways that move at their own pace. This model is much better for all students, as studies show that they progress faster and retain knowledge longer. Each take leader/follower roles, teacher/learner roles, and others specified for each unique task. As in life, or even in your own family where multiple siblings may watch a movie, visit a museum or learn a new concept together, we are never in environments where we all have the same exact ability level. Even in traditional schools where students of the same age are grouped together in large numbers, studies show that their actual abilities diverge wildly, causing less advanced students to be left behind and more advanced students to be bored. So we feel confident that if another student is more or less advanced than yours, it benefits them both!

What is your attendance policy? What happens if my student needs to be absent?

We monitor and record attendance since we require such information for their state reporting needs. That said, we do not keep strict attendance (although we require a minimum of 140 days) if a student is progressing through our curriculum at the required pace. Since our lesson plans are personalized and can be self-paced, it is not a problem if a student is absent every now and then as long as students progress towards mastery of our required learning goals. Since our classes are so small, the teacher and students form intimate bonds and can adapt work on a project or a task around such absences. However, frequent absences also signal a lack of commitment to learning and a lack of participation in the group. While we try to remain flexible to accommodate your unique needs, there is a direct correlation between student attendance and performance, so please prepare your student to attend class daily to ensure their success.

What happens if a student stops attending the microschool after a trimester?

Most students will stay with us for one or more academic years. There are cases where a student’s family will travel, enter the traditional school system, or have a change of plans. These cases are never so significant as to disrupt a classroom. Also, we do continue having enrollments during the school year so that a new student will fill an empty seat here and there.

Will class take place if our teacher is off sick?

Sick days happen in any school environment, but there is nothing to worry about if your teacher is sick. Your teacher will communicate with you proactively to inform you of his or her absence and compensate you for missed hours on another day. In the infrequent occasion where a longer absence is needed, we will ensure that a suited substitute teacher is provided.

My student may need support during their independent study work. Can Brilliant Grades assist me?

The structure of the Brilliant Grades school day, with live morning classes and an afternoon independent study period, has been informed by learning science and is intended to strengthen the student's learning autonomy. The tasks and projects assigned will be carefully reviewed, scaffolded, and personalized so that the students do not need too much additional help. That said, it is always good to have assistance if a student gets stuck or needs a pointer or two in the right direction. For this reason, we will assign a teaching assistant to be available for you in the afternoons with a dedicated Zoom room to enter, where the teacher will be waiting to help. 

Is the curriculum aligned with my state’s standards? Will my teacher know how to teach to my state’s standards?

Some of our students' parents do not care much about standards, but others do because they want to go back to traditional school at some point, or they may need transcripts or other documentation for the future. All of our teachers can confidently teach to any standards required for ELA, Math, Science, and Social Studies. 

Furthermore, we use continuous testing via adaptive learning software (MobyMax and iReady) that aligns with all US state standards. This means we can conduct testing that identifies your student's progress against your state standards and plan for specific improvements. We can also use MobyMax Test Prep, a revolutionary new way to dramatically increase test scores. Please ensure you inform your teacher which grade level you wish to enter next year (the target should be reasonable given your current grade-level performance). With a consistent and faithful observance of your teacher's lesson plans, we should be able to advance your student faster than in a traditional school environment.

Are students tested and graded? Can we have a transcript? What happens if the student wants to return to a public school next year? 

We have a light but robust and diverse assessment regimen at Brilliant Grades. Frequent formative assessments occur in all classrooms so that the teacher always knows how a student is doing. For this school year, we use iReady across all classrooms and grade levels to provide official assessments across all state and common core standards, which can provide reporting and testing for all States. That said, if you need a specific format, type of summative assessment, or grade for your reporting or other requirements, we are happy to provide it. For more information regarding assessments, please review our Instructional Arcs.

How will I know how my student is doing?

Teachers offer frequent feedback via email and Google Classroom, usually every week. We can also arrange for them to create dedicated audio or video feedback to respond to your queries. If there is a serious topic to discuss, we can arrange for a 1:1 meeting between the parent and the teacher. We ask you to respect the other students and not engage the teacher during normal classroom hours. 

How much homework is provided during the independent study period? How do we receive homework?

The GE program contains at least 1 hour of independent work in the afternoon. Some of this will be specific work, other tasks might relate to reading, a project, or even working with another student.  This work will be assigned in class and is usually posted in a virtual classroom like Google Classroom for reference–your teacher will provide additional details. For younger students, the teacher will start with very little afternoon work at the beginning of the term and gradually build up as they increase their stamina. Our small, intimate classroom environment means you can influence the amount of work outside class hours. If you observe your student in the afternoon and see they are overstrained or not challenged enough, please let your teacher know about it.

What is Brilliant Grades' philosophy around writing on paper, and how do you work on handwriting?

Admittedly, our students will be typing a lot in their life. But we think handwriting is still important. For younger students, teachers will occasionally issue worksheets that need to be printed to improve handwriting. Older students will occasionally write paragraphs or essays by hand. Teachers then check and monitor improvement either by asking for students to show the work on the screen so they can take a screenshot of it or by asking you to take a photo and send it over by email. Some teachers highly recommend using graphic tablets for writing digitally on the whiteboard and taking notes using an application like Google Keep, especially if your student has been prescribed occupational therapy. The currently recommended tablet is this one, which works with PC and Apple computers. If you would like more information regarding this, please get in touch with us. 

How do you manage excessive screen time?

We believe there is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ screen time. Whether we like it or not, screens are a big part of our lives, and the Brilliant Grades Microschool, a 21st-century educational online program, involves screen time. However, all the screen time we require is ‘good’ screen time: creating things, researching concepts, and collaborating with others; and because of this, we embrace it, taking advantage of all the information in the world at our fingertips. Positive screen time teaches our students how to safely and appropriately navigate the internet while cultivating the habit of pursuing active, inquisitive, and productive interests instead of passive consumption. Furthermore, the Brilliant Grades school day has been structured so that we can offer choices during the afternoon which do not involve screen time if you so desire.

How much parent involvement is needed in the Brilliant Grades Microschool? What is my role as a “microschool parent?”

The program is designed to minimize parental involvement during class hours. Very young students may need a few weeks to get used to our study routines and program, but they, too, should soon get used to it and seek help from the teacher instead of you. When they come over, you should certainly help them when their requests relate to basic computer skills; otherwise, feel free to direct them to their teacher. However, as it is in any school, we strongly recommend that you are highly involved in your student’s schooling by providing any necessary support outside of class hours, asking questions about what they’re learning, and ensuring that they are completing all of their assigned work. While teachers inspire active learning in the classroom, parents/guardians should do so at home. If we work together, modeling a genuine interest in education by sharing and inquiring with our students, we will instill in them a passion for learning that will influence them throughout their lives. 

How do we communicate with the Brilliant Grades administration team? How do we communicate with our teacher?

You can reach the administration team via email at microschools@brilliantgrades.com for anything related to billing, scheduling, and other administrative matters. You can also reach your teacher by email for anything related to homework and daily classroom routines. You can expect a weekly email from your teacher on everything that happened last week and forecasting what will happen next week.

In addition, teachers may use Google Chat to have more casual, direct contact with their students, especially in middle and high school. We recommend setting up a dedicated Gmail for your student to use.

Finally, Google Classroom is where students post all assignments. You can have separate access to Google Classroom for yourself and your student using 2 email addresses if you want.

How do monthly and quarterly payments work with term time and winter/spring holidays?

Since we offer continuous enrollment, parents’ billing cycles start on different dates and cannot be synced 100% with term time. You will be billed once every 30 days, and this bill is all-inclusive (it considers electives, holidays, and everything else). Please advise us if you want to discontinue your participation at least 2 weeks before the end of each quarter.