Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

NorthStar teachers hold a bachelor's degree from a four-year university as a minimum. Teacher certification and experience information is found in our “Meet the Teachers” section.

Yes. The school's conferencing and productivity software may be used by both Macintosh and Windows users. Some courses are restricted to students who use Windows computers. Please see the course descriptions for such details.

Yes. Transcripts may be mailed directly to the student or to the school or university of his/her choice. To order your transcript, download the transcript request form and then email this form to the registrar whose name will be given within the NSA online school environment.

NSA is accredited by CITA (Commission on International and Trans-regional Accreditation) and by SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools). To order your diploma, download the diploma order form and then email this form to the registrar whose name will be given within the NSA online school environment.

Yes. NorthStar Academy is very open to partnering with other schools by providing individual courses to the host school as a way to complement their existing program and course offerings.

We have realized the following advantages for an online school:

• students who are tutored or who study individually or in very small groups have been found to achieve close to two standard deviations above the mean of comparable students in grouped instruction*
• students who study independently are better prepared for post-secondary studies**
• students are more likely to edit and refine their work when using a productivity tool like word processing software than if they were using pen and paper.
• students are not inhibited by time or shyness factors of a traditional classroom environment
• students can review every aspect of their class activities to include class lectures, presentations, assignments, and group discussions because all of these items have been digitally recorded, a clear benefit over oral communications that can easily be forgotten.

*Bloom, B.S. (1984, June/July). The 2-Sigma problem: the search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educational Researcher, 13, 4-16.
**Hathaway, W.E. (1993, April). Rural education: Challenges and opportunities. The Canadian School Executive, 12 (10), 3-9, 42.

Absolutely! Educators at NorthStar Academy understand the demands of homeschooling and realize that parents will need assistance from time to time. NorthStar Academy welcomes those families who may only need one or two individual courses to complement their homeschooling program.

NorthStar Academy uses a 100 pt. scale as opposed to a 4 point scale or a letter scale. The grading scale is available here.

NorthStar Academy offers many different start dates and operates year round. As a general rule students can begin a course any month and have up to 52 weeks to complete 36 weeks of lessons (1.0 credit) or 26 weeks to complete 18 weeks of lessons (0.5). See our Course dates for more info.

Because NorthStar exists to help meet the needs of families, our policy promotes flexibility within reason. We do not have "due dates" in the traditional sense of the term. Rather, we have suggested turn-in dates that are offered to students to help them gauge their pace so that they may finish their course within a traditional 9-month school year, but with 12 months to do so (for 1.0 credit courses). Please see the School and Course Completion Dates section for detailed information.

A student may transfer into NSA no more than 18 credits toward his/her graduation requirements. For a student to earn a NorthStar Academy high school diploma, he/she will need to satisfy one of the several flexible diploma "options" offered by NorthStar, please contact us to request your copy of our diploma options, which include dual enrollment at a junior college to choices in the type of diploma.

* NSA defines one credit as either a full-year course or two half-year (one-semester) courses.

The parent or a designated adult, 20 years of age or older. The supervisor does not need to be a certified teacher or hold any post-secondary degree.

Yes. Each staff member must sign the following statement of faith:

1. I believe in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, to be the inspired word of God (Exodus 24:4; Psalms 19:7-10; Luke 24:44; Matthew 5:17-18), without error in the original writings (Deuteronomy 4:1-2), the complete revelation of his will for the salvation of man, and the divine and final authority for all Christian faith, life, and conduct (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20-21).
2. I believe in one God (John 10:30), creator of all things (Genesis 1:1), infinitely perfect and eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19).
3. I believe that Jesus Christ, without change in his eternal deity (John 10:31-38); Hebrews 1:3), became man through conception of the Holy Spirit and virgin birth (Luke 1:31-35), that he died on a cross (Mark 15:23-26; John 19:16-18), a perfect and complete sacrifice, in our stead and for our sin according to the Scriptures (Hebrews 9:13-15; Ephesians 1:6-7). He arose bodily from the dead and ascended into heaven (1 Corinthians 15:3-4; Acts 1:6-11) where, at the right hand of God, he is now our high priest and advocate (Hebrews 2:16-17).
4. I believe that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ (John 16:13-14) and, during this age, to convict of sin and regenerate the sinner upon belief in Christ (John 16:7-12; Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 6:11); at the time of regeneration baptizing the believer into the one body of which Christ is the head (Galatians 3:26-28) and to indwell, guide, instruct, fill, and empower the believer for godly living and service (Romans 8:26-27 & 15:13; Proverbs 3:5-6).
5. I believe that man was directly created by God in his own image Genesis 1:27), but fell into sin (Genesis 3). The entire human race is, therefore, lost and only through repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10), faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:4-9), and regeneration of the Holy Spirit, can salvation and spiritual life be obtained (Romans 8:13-14).
6. I believe that the atoning death of Jesus Christ and his resurrection provide the only ground of justification and salvation for all who believe (John 14:6; Acts 4:12), and that only such as receive Jesus Christ by personal faith are born of the Holy Spirit and by him sealed to the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30).
7. I believe in the personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 4:1), and that the hope of his appearing has a vital bearing on the personal life and service of the believer (2 Timothy 1:8-10).
8. I believe in the bodily resurrection of all the dead (Romans 8:11), of the believer to everlasting blessedness and joy with the Lord (Romans 4:7-8), and the unbeliever to judgment and everlasting and conscious punishment (Matthew 25:46; Hebrews 10:29).

NorthStar students have access to over 30 special interest groups and other extracurricular activities from which to choose.

Yes. NorthStar Academy can provide individual courses for the students whose school may not be able to offer certain courses during a particular semester or year.

Yes to both. Each lesson has a suggested schedule for the student to follow, but the student is free to follow it or to devise his own schedule and pace (within reason).

Grades 5-8 course schedules are basically set (pre-planned) with a few elective choices - though you can select anything you desire. Students in grades 9-12 have many courses to choose from as they make their schedule of courses.

Students have both options. Teachers and students may chat via text-chat and audio-chat which is built into the software, and they can audio and/or video chat using software such as Skype.

It depends," but it really does depend on the student, but from what parents have told me, I would say that students would need at least one hour per day for academic "needs": emailing teachers, group discussions, downloading assignments, notes, lessons, etc. The students may also set up their account so that they may work offline, and they would then complete their work and read their lessons and assignments offline. Then when the internet is available the student will synchronize their account.

We have families with us who are in remote areas, and they actually come into their respective main city to get access to the Internet, log into NorthStar, "do school" for that day or so, download work on their laptop computer, and then return to their remote village. This type of approach to using NorthStar works well for families in this situation. So at one extreme end of the spectrum, we have families who are doing well with minimum online access to NSA.

Yes, assuming that the other school is accredited. If the school is not accredited, then your son can take our challenge exam for that course if NorthStar offers an exam for the same or similar course. Otherwise, we'll need to pursue more assessment options from within NorthStar.

We do not need any transcript at the time of registration; however, if your child will be graduating from NorthStar transfer credits as detailed under Graduation Requirements under Academy Info will need to be awarded prior to the start of your child's senior year.

Students and parents may find and purchase all of the course resources for each NorthStar course from our custom-created online bookstore, or they may choose to buy the needed course materials on their own from vendors of their own choosing by using our online bookstore information which shows all of the needed course materials organized by course name.

One of the benefits of taking courses from NorthStar Academy is that you can work online or offline. There are multiple ways to do course work offline. If you want to do the majority of your course work offline (e.g. you will be traveling a lot or your internet/electricity is unreliable) you will actually want to register for NSA courses that are designed for the offline environment. These are known as our low bandwidth courses or LBW courses. All of the course content is synchronized to a USB drive and mailed to the student. In order for the course work to be sent to NorthStar Academy, the student will need to go online from time to time and update courses. For more information about taking NSA courses in an offline environment, please contact the NSA office.

Over the past 12 years NorthStar has served students in the following countries:

Answer from a "NorthStar Mom":

I think it is vital for the student to have his own computer if the parents consistently use the computer during what we would consider school hours. My son attends a cooperative school during the day. He shares a computer with 1 other student during school hours so a schedule has been worked out between the 2 students. However, he has his own computer at home to do homework. My husband spends many hours a day on the computer and sharing did not work well.

Software/hardware: The family must provide for their own computer and Internet access.
Each family must provide the following items:

1. Computer (Macintosh OS 10.X or newer or Pentium / Windows XP or newer) with DVD player, 30 GB hard disk and 1 GB RAM. Webdesign classes require an i3 running at least Windows XP or a G3/500 MHZ running OS X on a Macintosh. Microsoft Windows 7 and Vista are supported.
2. High speed-internet preferred.
3. Note: Connection to NorthStar through a proxy or filtering service is possible, but it requires that your Internet service provider knows how to make the necessary changes for your account. Contact NSA for these details.
4. Printer (strongly recommended).
5. Scanner/digital camera (required for drawing, painting, recommended for math and science classes as well as some 5th and 6th grade classes).
6. Current anti-virus software.
7. Microsoft Office 2007 or newer.

Texts, videos, CD/DVDs: the family will purchase directly from a retail vendor or from our online bookstore all of the needed items for the subjects (classes) for which they have purchased the lesson bundles. You may view a list of all of the required class learning materials at our online bookstore.

NorthStar Parent-Led will provide all of the lesson resources for each course via the Learning Management System. NorthStar Parent-Led will enroll new families in an Orientation 101 course that will explain how the program works and how the family can get started using the program.

Each NorthStar Parent-Led Student will access all courses through the Learning Management Systm (LMS) via an internet browser. For more info, please visit the How It Works page.

While NorthStar Parent-Led is not a HomeSchool Umbrella organization but a curriculum and lesson resource provider, we are moving toward offering more services to home-based learners, and in the future, NSA expects to offer services to include an umbrella administration service for those who have chosen to home educate.

Please see the differences shown on the comparison page.