Delaware STEM School

★Dianne Pearce

We enrolled, and then dropped, a $200 Outschool class through this organization. The Outschool class consisted of a college kid in his dorm room (Star Wars and Don't Tread on me posters hanging on the wall) at U of D, muddling his way through a bunch of math. There was no direction; he was shocked the kids hand't done the homework when he had neglected to upload it the day before anyway, even after I messaged him about 5 times. It was touted as being taught by an Academy. Well, the academy is clearly for the college students muddling through learning how to teach and not for the poor Outschool students trying to learn math. As you can see from the photo, when you click on the teacher's highlighted name on Outschool you get a message that there is NO teacher by that name teaching there, and that is because the academy is hiding the fact that it is using students behind its "academy" name. I too was once a graduate student learning how to teach. #1. He looked like he was too young to be a graduate student. #2. Unlike when I was in college, no one was supervising or observing him. And, of course, parents who pay for this are tricked, because you think you're getting a real teacher.DSA, you wasted the wrong parent's money. If you sign your child up for the Outschool class, you will not be getting what you think you are getting. And there was no "Singapore Method" being taught. There was no method at all. Also, as someone who values copyright and teaches about avoiding plagiarism, I was also disappointed to see the teacher just upload huge sections of copyrighted workbooks for us to basically steal. I assume my tax dollars are funding this mess of a school, and I am very disappointed by that. Stick "STEM" or "STEAM" in the name and you get $$ thrown at you with no oversight. The only thing I can imagine is that their live classes are better. But I have my very strong reservations. And I would highly suggest any parent sit in on a class, and not just pay and walk away.