Course Pacing and Progress
Students who enroll with NDCDE in online courses are expected to follow their online assignment calendar (pacing chart) or teacher-provided calendar for their course(s). Students are expected to stay on pace by completing their assignments throughout the duration of their course(s). To do so, students should expect to engage in 1-2 hours of work per day, per course.
NDCDE recommends or may require (see NDCDE course descriptions for details) that its course not be completed in less than five weeks. This minimum is set to provide adequate time for student and teacher interaction, assignment completion, and grading. Additional information on course length can be found in the Course Length policy.
Monitoring Progress
NDCDE will monitor student activity in a course upon initial active enrollment. If there have been no activity minutes logged by the student, within the first 7 days of initial course enrollment, the student, Learning Coach, guardian/parent, course enroller, and teacher will receive a notification via email alerting them of this inactivity and information on dropping the course. Throughout the duration of the course length, students who do not stay on pace will be notified via multiple means by NDCDE.
Course Loads
NDCDE does not restrict the number of credits in which a student is simultaneously enrolled; however, anytime during the first 8 weeks of an NDCDE course, an NDCDE teacher may request that an assistant principal or the head principal conduct a student course load review for any student who is substantially behind pace or who is failing. This review may include working with the student’s school to determine the student’s current total course load and the number of combined hours in which the student is engaged in instruction (assuming each NDCDE course requires one hour per day). NDCDE will work with the school (or learning coach for homeschooled students) to develop a schedule/course list that ensures the student has a full day of instruction as defined by 15.1-06-04 (4) and that does not exceed this definition by more than one hour for elementary students, one and one-half hours for middle school students, and two hours for high school students. NDCDE may place hold or withdraw students from courses to meet these guidelines, and in the case of withdrawals will issue a 50% refund when making unilateral withdrawal decisions based on course load.