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Dear Parents and Students,

It is a great honor to work with your family as we seek to present exceptional courses in SAT Prep, PSAT, Critical Thinking, and Study Skills Intensive. Our quest is to promote a passion for academics as well as the Lord and to have fun along the way! Thank you for allowing Standards of Excellence the privilege of serving you as part of the home school community. Viv Lynn is the director and teacher while Ken Lynn functions as Business Manager and back-office support.

Class Presentation:

Standards of Excellence has diversified class formats: some classes are on campus whereas other classes are online-live presentations with Zoom video conferencing support.  We have found a great deal of flexibility and value to this process and are excited for the future growth in the online arena where classes are scheduled for specific dates and times that allow for full interactive sharing with teachers and students. The sessions are recorded and students can request access of missed sessions or to review materials that are challenging them. Each class session is full of instruction and activities to assist them in mastering the subject.

Class Preparation:
We have prepared a class syllabus as your guide for weekly assignments. The syllabus for online classes can be found in the first assignment of your online course as well as distributed the first day of class. On the day of class, students are expected to come to class and to be “well prepared” by:

• Reading the assigned material
• Being ready to discuss the lesson in class
• Completing the assignments (workbook pages, tests, or online projects)
• All homework will be completed, then submitted/ uploaded through the Jupiter Ed account.

Grade Assessments and Reports:
Grades are assessed and reports available for all classes. We are utilizing an online grade program at JupiterEd. All curriculum, assignments, reports, test grades, and assignments grades are available 24/7 through this system. Final Grade/Course reports, not transcripts, are sent to the parent’s email address.   You will receive a separate document describing how to access this system.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The following grading curve for PSAT and SATP will be applied: A:84-100; B :70-83; C: 49-69; D: 36-49; F:0-35. Final grades will be assessed on a curve commensurate with the letter grade earned.

Grading Homework:
All assignments will be graded by our staff; we will give feedback to students whenever appropriate. If you find errors or have questions about the student’s homework, we encourage you to communicate your needs to us. These systems are tools, not restraints.

Neatness counts!

It is imperative that your child’s submissions are legible. Whether printing, scanning, writing, or annotating, we must be able to read their papers to grade accurately. Please review your child’s performance in this area and consider any remedial action you feel is appropriate. Sloppy papers lead to mistakes, inaccurate grading, and embarrassment. Illegible papers will be returned, ungraded. Please contact us if you need assistance.

Grading assignments is an arduous task and we need your assistance to keep the process running smoothly! Please instruct your student about the importance of properly marked pages, file placement and page order. Homework assignments are submitted online. Each assignment should be in a separate PDF file while also maintaining proper page order and orientation. Please do not send individual page gifs, etc.

Technology Vision:

We anticipate students will have access to a computer. Although a smartphone or tablet may be useful, our ability to support the vast array of technology outstanding is limited.  Our current technology vision for these courses contains:

1. PC/MAC (see recommendations at end of document)
2. Ability to Download/Upload files
3. Online-Live Classrooms (1.5MB Bandwidth)
4. Printing/Scanning paper documents
5. PDF Annotation

Students in live classes will have a text; in online classes, students will routinely download PDF files to their computer and complete their assignments locally. Both live classes and online classes will submit their  homework by uploading it to the student’s Jupiter Ed account.  “Browser Based Readers” do not support all the technology we rely on and thus online completion is not in order. Adobe Acrobat Reader is free, reliable, feature rich. It can be run locally on your PC/MAC and is our choice for PDF file support.

1. Whenever possible, we have setup the files for students to have a “form” that can be filled out easily and returned.
   1. Not all assignments can be completed with this Acrobat technology.
   2. Not all pdf readers support “Forms”
2. We readily accept “annotation” and Acrobat Reader handles these functions with ease. Some exploration might lead your student to master several tools that have wide acceptance:
   1. Writing with mouse or stylist (requires practice)
   2. Adding Text to existing documents (requires less practice)
   3. Drawing (A Rembrandt Art level not required, but with some practice and effort should produce legible results)
3. Finally, the lowest-tech method (so 20^th Century) is where you Print files and complete the project by hand and then Scan them for submission. If you rely on this method, you will need the capability to create PDF files from paper documents. Multi-function printers, scanners, and cameras usually accomplish these tasks with ease.
   1. You may also us a “Scanner App” on your smartphone, but please test your chosen process for quality and dependencies. Taking pictures only creates gif files, you will need to create PDF files before unloading completed assignments.

Tuition Payments:
Tuition is due by the First class of the month to avoid a $10 late fee.  SOE will send tuition reminders (invoices) automatically from our billing system with a convenient link for payment. If necessary, we can accept checks sent to our office or PayPal. We cannot accept any payments on campus, please do not leave them with a campus front-desk worker. They are not an agent of SOE and this does not signify delivery.

Withdrawal Policy:

Although we do not require a yearlong commitment, we do require a 30-day notice of withdrawal. We do not provide refunds for partial months.

If you have problems with tuition payments, please let us know so that we may work with you in creating a payment schedule.

Communication:
You should be familiar with the following TRUSTED email addresses. Please whitelist them in your email client.
vivlynn@txsoe.com – you may see many messages sent from this address
kenlynn@txsoe.com – account used for business mail, reports and statements

Payments@txsoe.com – This is a special account for solely for PayPal.

Computerized Invoices:
We utilize a computerized statement/billing system. We hope this will increase communication and serve you better. The heart of the system is emailed statements and invoices. We encourage you to call us if you find any discrepancies with statements or charges. We would also like to know if this system fails to meet your needs in any way.

Zoom Links for Online Classes

We will send a Zoom invitation by email to parents and students at least 15 minutes before class begins, but the link (found below) is Viv’s personal room.

https://zoom.us/j/8261570215?pwd=SlNVdkRqRy9PYk5vMEc4YUQyL1RYQT09

Viv Personalized Meeting ID: 826 157 0215

Password: joyful (No Caps, No Spaces, No Punctuation)

The default telephone access is listed below. Telephones can be used when you temporarily have poor bandwidth, equipment problems, or at “Grandma’s house”

+1 346 248 7799(Houston)

Our Zenith:

Our desire is to challenge your children to work diligently and achieve academic excellence. Our approach engages students, and we have a blast at the same time! We are looking forward to having a great year!

In Christ… By His Grace and For His Glory Alone,

Viv Lynn

Director

Standards of Excellence

As Promised

The End of the Document

Notes about Materials

All classes

• Printer
• Computer with microphone, speakers, and camera
• Whiteboard (8in X 10in) with markers (dark color)
• One-inch binder with notepaper

Computer Recommendations

Recommended hardware is for your reference. Most modern computers exceed these specifications, but it is your responsibility to ensure hardware performance.

PC/Mac – Dual Core 2Ghz or Higher (i3/i5/i7 or AMD equivalent)

Laptop – Quad Core (i3/i5/i7 or AMD equivalent)

Camera – at least 720p HD video

Bandwidth – 1.5Mbps (speedtest.net)

Speakers – Internal, External, or headphone (Sony WHXB700)

Microphone – Internal, External,  or headphone (Sony WHXB700)

Note: The headphones listed are “over the ear” and “Noise Cancelling”, these are a personal favorite. Viv prefers to use Jabra 65t (inner ear pods).

Software Recommendations

Acrobat Reader

Google Chrome

Zoom Client (download on your first login)

Ken Lynn

Business Manager

Standards of Excellence

100 Spanish Oak Cir

Georgetown, TX. 78628

512-585-1835