This section describes how we conduct our courses, including what we commit to our families and what we expect from them.

Independent Study. Since our courses support home education, they are primarily independent study classes. Our teachers use their expertise to guide the curriculum and provide personalized evaluation and feedback. Each class also has a live session once each week.

Parental Oversight. We understand parents to be responsible for their children's education, regardless of the medium they choose. We assume parents will actively supervise their children as necessary in all aspects of our courses, including deadline management and academic performance. We also assume parents will remain aware of and responsible for their children's behavior during class time and in any correspondence with their teachers or school staff. Our teachers will notify parents where they detect a problem or declining performance trend, but we assume that parents will already be aware of these issues because of their own active supervision of their children.

Rigor and Workload. Our courses are designed for college-bound students with high academic standards. They are excellent preparation for admission into top U.S. universities, as indicated by the success of our students who have already entered college. Under our academic standards an average student who works reasonably hard can expect to receive an average (80-85%) grade. The average student will spend approximately an hour per day outside class for a junior high course and an hour-and-a-half per day for a high school course. Advanced and honors courses will take more time even for strong students. Individual experiences vary with student aptitude and diligence.

"Advanced Placement (AP)" and "Honors" Designation. Because all our courses emphasize a biblical worldview, we do not offer courses specifically to prepare for any Advanced Placement (AP) test, and therefore we cannot label any of our courses as "AP" courses. However, most of our courses are good preparation for their respective AP test, and families wanting to prepare for those tests should ask the teacher before registration how to supplement the course to maximize success in preparing for an AP test. Most of our courses are rigorous enough to be considered "Honors" by many organizations and institutions, but the decision whether to apply those designations or others (e.g., "College Prep" or "College Level") is up the parent who prepares the transcript.

Evaluation and Feedback. Effective feedback is the hallmark of home education, and this is where our teachers put most of their time. This is one of the things that distinguish us from on-line tutorials, which usually provide little feedback. In our courses the parents evaluate daily work against a key while the teacher evaluates reports, papers, projects, and exams. Teacher evaluation includes an objective grade and feedback for improvement. Students can usually expect feedback within one to two weeks after the teacher receives the work in the correct format. For large assignments (e.g., major papers, long lab reports) or during busy periods (e.g., mid-terms, finals) it may take teachers longer to provide feedback. In all cases our intent is to provide feedback before the next evaluation on the same material or skills.

Audit Option. If a student would like to benefit from the instruction and feedback of a particular course but not do all the work associated with that course, we will, on a case by case basis, consider an audit option for that student. In this arrangement, the student participates in the class and submits any work (e.g., reports, papers, exams) from the regular syllabus that the family wants evaluated. The teacher will evaluate and provide feedback on any regular work submitted on time. The teacher will grade submitted items to the same standard for all students, without making special grading standards for an incomplete assignment submitted by a student auditing the class. For audit situations, the teacher will not provide a semester grade or final grade (since homeschooling families assign their own grades and generate their own transcripts, our grades serve primarily as recommendations to the family in any case). An audited class does not count as a prerequisite for a follow-on course in The Potter's School, so a student who had audited a prerequisite course would have to pass applicable placement requirements to take a follow-on course, or would have to obtain special permission from the follow-on course's teacher to accept the audited course as a prerequisite. Because students taking a class in an audit status may be less likely to take a follow-on course, we will accept non-audit students in priority over audit students. Auditing a course must be approved in advance by the teacher and the director. There is no reduced price for an audited course.

Credit and Transcripts. The Potter's School is not accredited and is not pursuing accreditation. Instead we provide top-quality course content, feedback and evaluation that accredited schools (and homeschooling families, if they are using an accrediting process) can easily credit under their accreditation system. Similarly, The Potter's School does not provide a transcript. Instead we provide objective evaluation that families can reflect in their transcripts and portfolios in a manner best suited to their educational requirements.

Live Instruction. Classes meet for 90 minutes each week. The conference interface, which loads into the web browser, includes audio, chat, whiteboard, slide show presentations (with live annotation markup), synchronized web page tours (with live annotation markup), and whiteboard. To avoid problems for low-bandwidth users we use very little video during class, and cameras are optional. Teachers use the live class session to provide group instruction in important or difficult areas and to spot-check student progress through Q&A. The live sessions also allow students to be sharpened through group discussion and peer interaction.

Collaborative Tools. Along with media-rich live conferencing features, starting in 2008-2009 our courses will feature the proven educational and community tools from Moodle. They include integrated event and assignment calendars; assignment drop boxes for submission and return; assignment project tracking where interim versions are linked to the initial and final version; and integrated gradekeepimg. There are also community features like student and teacher profiles; class and club forums; class and personal blogs; class wikis; and more. (Not all features are used in each course.)

Missed Classes and Recordings. Our classes are intended to be taken synchronously (live), and regular attendance in class sessions is expected for each course. Since the classes are interactive discussions, many teachers even assign a participation grade. Missing an occasional class is not a problem, but missing many classes makes it difficult for even a strong student to do well in the course. To increase flexibility for busy homeschooling families, recorded class sessions are often available for asynchronous viewing by students registered in that course. These recorded sessions are not intended to replace regular attendance in the live class sessions. Playback of recordings may be limited to evenings, nighttime hours, and weekends, when fewer classes are in session. If for any reason a student plans to miss or ends up missing more than three live class sessions in a semester, the family must obtain concurrence (as part of registration, if possible) from the teacher and director for the student to continue in the course. We will consider other exceptions with prior approval, particularly for overseas students with limited Internet connections.

Cancelled Class. Since our courses are primarily independent study programs, students can miss the occasional class without a problem. However, in those cases the student remains responsible for all deadlines and anything discussed in class, so it is incumbent on the family to gain any missed information on their own. Due to server scheduling constraints, we generally do not schedule make-up sessions or allow students to sit in on a different section to make up a missed class. However, if class is cancelled (or effectively lost) more than twice in a one-semester course or more than three times in a full-year course, we will schedule a make-up session for any subsequent lost or cancelled class. The make-up session, which will also be recorded, will be at a time that maximizes the number of students who can participate, but we do not guarantee that all students will be able to make it to any given makeup classes.

Deadlines. Our teachers enforce deadlines. We consider deadline management to be an essential skill for college or job preparation. Also, we need students to honor deadlines so our teachers can effectively manage their own work load. Our teachers will deduct 5-10% per day for late work submitted to them. They will extend grace when circumstances beyond the family's control preclude timely submission, but only where the problem could not have been anticipated and where the family continues to make reasonable effort to submit the work as close to the deadline as possible. When a planned event will preclude timely submission we expect the family to increase the student's workload before the event and submit the work in advance, rather than allowing the student to fall behind and increasing the student's workload afterward.

Behavior and Discipline. We hold parents responsible for the behavior of their students during class and any other time their students access our services. We assume that parents are providing sufficient oversight to ensure their students prepare for class, remain attentive during class, and manage their assignment and exam deadlines. We also assume that parents are providing sufficient oversight to ensure their students remain respectful and considerate during other school activities. Because we cannot physically monitor students during class we may occasionally require that parents be present with their students at the computer, to help us identify the source of a recurring problem. Disruptive, disrespectful or discourteous students will typically be given one opportunity to repent and obey. Because of their adverse impact on other students, if they do not comply they will be blocked from all services until a parent contacts us to discuss corrective action.