FAQs

We are truly a community of caring Coaching Teachers, staff, and families. We all have one thing in mind: To make sure that your student is successful. Our staff works extremely hard to support you and to be your partner in education. We work together as a team, so we can support you along the way and on this journey. If you join our program, you will be working with a team of experts. All of our teachers are fully California credentialed. They are beyond passionate about what they do and many of them not only home-schooled their own students, but also have been at River Oaks since the program’s inception in 2010. It is our goal and our mission to support you and create a community for you.

There is no cost to attend ROA. We are state funded just like any other public school.

ROA has two accreditations: WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) and the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) accreditation. These accreditations show that ROA has an academically rigorous and high quality program. Our high school diplomas are welcomed by all colleges throughout the country. These accreditations further attest to the fact that ROA prepares all high school students for college and career and gives our program credibility and standing within the higher academic institutions.

ROA also received the 2023 California Distinguished School Award.

Our main facility is located in beautiful Westlake Village. We are off Hampshire Road off the 101 freeway. In Oxnard, our new facility is located off Gonzalez Road between Rice and Rose, off the 101 freeway. Both sites offer enrichment workshops and academic support and are open 4 days/week, so we can answer your questions.

We have a myriad of different curricula. We offer the traditional large publishers (Prentice Hall, McGraw Hill, etc.), but also use a lot of more homeschool-friendly materials. We will work with our families to help select the materials that best suit the student’s learning style and the parents' teaching style. We can also create a “blend”, consisting of some books and materials and online classes for your student. Since we are a public school, ROA provides your student with all of the materials and classes needed for their academics, including access to technology, free of charge.

We are a TK-12th grade program. A student qualifies for the TK program, if his/her 5th birthday falls between September 2 and April 2.
https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/gs/em/kinderfaq.asp#admission

The parent plays an important role at ROA. The parent in our program is the academic facilitator. That means that ROA relies on the parent to be our “eyes” at home. We ask our parents to make sure that they check on their student’s progress daily, review the work and make sure that the student does the assigned work at home. We also ask the parent that they grade/review the work and attend the regularly scheduled meetings with the Coaching Teacher and the student, so we can work together in partnership to make your student successful. Please make sure you are available for this important role in your student’s educational journey.

Our Coaching Teachers are here to partner with you, guide and support you along your journey to educate your child. You will have an assigned, fully credentialed, Coaching Teacher and meet with him/her regularly. We do have to meet at least every 20 school days, but we often suggest meeting much more frequently (at the high school level, we highly recommend weekly meetings), so we can make sure that we answer all your questions, guide and support you and that we keep you and the student “on track”.

The teacher will not write your lesson plans or teach your student (this is an independent study program), but help you with choosing the curriculum, making the assignments, and helping you with the pacing plan to make sure that learning happens. The student dictates the pace of the learning and that can vary between all subjects. That is why we work so closely with our families to make sure that the student is challenged but not frustrated with the assignments and will make appropriate academic progress. We like to incorporate your student’s passions into the learning and will work closely with you to do so. We are always open and encourage you to ask questions. Not only will you get one Coaching Teacher assigned to you, but you ultimately have an entire team behind you, who is working hard to assist and support you on your journey.

We administer all state-mandated assessments and ask that all of our students participate in those since our funding, our accreditation, and our charter renewal are tied to having at least 95% of our students partake in these exams. We also administer the PE exam to our students in 5/7/9th grades.

Our students also take our local assessment three times/year (at the beginning of the school year, before the winter break, and in the spring), so we can make sure that the student is academically progressing.

We do not give letter grades to our students in TK-7th grades. We are giving letter grades from grade 8th-12th grade. Since you are working closely with your student you will always know, if they understand the materials. While you can give chapter and unit assessments, they only guide our instruction and will help us if we need to adjust our curriculum or our instruction. We believe that learning is a process and therefore we will always give our students the opportunity to review and relearn something rather than just holding firm with a grade on an assessment.

ROA does not give out funding. Our model is a different one. We pride ourselves in the fact that we not only offer our enrichment workshops and academic classes on campus and virtually, but also that we have a close relationship with you and support you not just academically, but take the whole child into consideration. We don’t want you to have to go out and figure out vendors and choose from a “park and rec” like offering where you drive your student all over town for workshops and classes. Therefore, our model offers everything either in person or virtually. If you go on our website you can see our workshop schedule. We are offering some classes on campus, some at the park, and some online.

Students in TK-8 are expected to work in 5 areas on a daily basis: English Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Science, and PE. Depending on grade level they are expected to work about 20-25 minutes in TK-2 and about 35-45 minutes in grades 3-5 and 45-50 minutes in grades 6-8. Students in high school are expected to take about 25-35 credits (5-7 classes) and work about 50 minutes/class/day.

We also have an amazing high school guidance counselor who can help you and answer your high school questions. Our high school program offers many paths to graduation, including concurrent enrollment at the local community colleges, classes in different career pathways, and creating electives that incorporate our students' passions and interests into their learning. It is very exciting to be a high school student at ROA.

We are passion powered. We want to hear what your student is interested in and passionate about. We love to try to build that into the daily academic work, so we can enhance the students’ learning and interests. That can be in the form of adding or substituting reading materials or creating courses in high school.

ROA has a full SPED team. We have resource teachers, speech, OT, counseling services, and school psychologists and we work closely with the VC SELPA for guidance and support. We review all IEPs annually and schedule assessments when requested and indicated. We also have students who have 504 Plans which we review and service annually.

Our enrichment workshops are offered in two 10-week blocks: one in the fall and one in the spring. The workshops are optional. Students can sign up for one or several workshops. We offer enrichment workshops at our facilities, at the park, virtually (through our own vendors and through Outschool), partnering with Conejo Park and Rec, nature hikes, and marine biology at the beach. Our workshops are for enrichment only and not for a grade. While some of our enrichment workshops are of academic nature, they all have an “academic component”. If your student attends a “writing” workshop, you can use attendance of that workshop for your “ELA” time for that day that your student is taking the workshop during the 10 weeks. Please note though that enrichment workshops generally do not take the place of the student’s daily work in that subject.

Our academic classes are offered to students in grades 6 through 12. The schedule can be found on our website under “academic classes”. Your student can be enrolled in any of the academic classes that are appropriate for that student/grade. Please talk to your coaching teacher about the classes. Our academic classes are virtual and are offered two or three times each week for the entire school year (unlike the enrichment workshops which are only in two 10-week blocks). Your student will use the book that the instructor uses for the class. This class is generally for a grade and will replace you (the parent) having to teach the class. If your student signs up for the class and does not attend, it will be marked as a “missed assignment” (per our Academic Probation Policy)

ROA has an extensive catalog with A-G (UC-approved) classes that our high school students can choose from to make sure that they are prepared to apply to a UC (or 4 year) university. We do not offer any AP courses, but instead recommend that students who are strong academically take concurrent enrollment courses at the Community Colleges. We administer the PSAT and SATs (free of charge to our students) multiple times/year also at our facility. Furthermore, we offer free SAT prep in ELA and math.