Parent Guidelines

General Guidelines

Read the Lucerna Academy Statement of Faith and Purpose.
Lucerna Academy believes that you, the parent, are your child’s primary teacher. We expect you to monitor your child’s participation and progress in their Lucerna classes.
Please ensure that the current email addresses for both you and your child are maintained on the StudyPlace ENROLLMENT website. We recommend that each student have their own personal email account. Its purpose is direct communication with their teacher - all parents are cc'ed on each email.

Required Resources

Families enrolled in our classical (Tapestry of Grace) courses and some traditional history and literature courses will need to own the related Tapestry of Grace year plan or Spool Subject and purchase or borrow resource books that are listed in our recommended book lists.

Lucerna book packages (RACpacks) will be available at a discounted rate at Bookshelf Central in the spring.
Lampstand Press publishes evaluation tools (called Evaluations) that are learning-level appropriate. If your classical Lucerna class does not include quizzes and exams, you may wish to purchase and use these in conjunction with the Lucerna discussion-only grade. Please note that Evaluations give you one or more grading tools per week, but we would not suggest that you evaluate your student weekly; a more normative number would be two quizzes and a unit-end test per quarter.

Grading

Lucerna Academy will be giving a discussion grade in history and literature classes. In some classes, this discussion grade may include occasional quizzes, forum discussion, presentations, etc. As the parent/educator, you may use that grade however you see fit to evaluate your student's work.
Each student in our discussion classes may have one excused absence per unit (or quarter), totaling four for the school year. Please notify your child's teacher by email at least 48 hours in advance of the absence, unless it is an emergency. In the case of an emergency, email your child's teacher at the earliest possible convenience.
Each student in our discussion classes may also have one dropped discussion grade per unit, with parental consent. The dropped grade option is typically used when the student is in class but not participating due to illness, technology issues, etc.
If your student will be traveling or absent from class for an extended period of time, please contact their teacher for instructions.
Students enrolled in our writing courses will receive detailed comments on each rough draft, and each final draft will receive a recommended grade.
Students in our writing classes may choose to drop two short (2-week for rhetoric students or 3-week for dialectic students) writing projects during the school year with parental and teacher approval.

Technology

Each student must have access to a computer. Siblings that are in the same class must each have access to a computer; they may not share.
Each student must have a noise-canceling headset.
During online class discussion times, students should be in a quiet room, with no peripheral noise (piano, siblings, etc), while participating in class.
It is your responsibility to keep your computer, headset, and any peripheral equipment in working order.

Student Behavior

Your child’s behavior is your responsibility. Please ensure that your child abides by the student guidelines.

Besides obviously vulgar language, we request that students not use rude or slang words, like "it sucks" or "dang" in order to keep an elevated, scholarly tone to our discussions.
Because online teaching relies on strong parental supervision and is conducted at wide distances, and there are not the benefits of local relationships when students misbehave, it is important to guard the overall peace of the online classrooms. Please respond to any correspondence concerning your student’s classroom performance or behavior within 48 hours.
If we do not receive a response from you in a timely fashion, your student may be suspended and unable to attend class until you address Lucerna Academy concerns. There will be no refund for suspensions due to student conduct and/or unresponsiveness from parents on such issues.

Consent to Usage

By registering for courses at Lucerna Academy, you agree with and give consent and assent to the following statement:

I understand my child will be recorded during live classes. From time to time, Lucerna Academy may use these recordings, live class archives or portions of those archives, as well as student papers and presentation videos, as part of marketing Lucerna Academy or in communications or publications including the Lucerna website, newsletters, the Lucerna Facebook page, Twitter, etc. A student’s full name will not be posted on a recording, paper, or video that is used for external viewing without the explicit permission of a parent or guardian.