OutschoolReviews 25

I am very disappointed with Outschool. Their refund policy is misleading — I tried to unenroll from a class immediately after signing up and received no response, leaving us stuck in a class that was not a good fit. On top of that, the membership system is designed so that if you cancel, you lose all of your accumulated points. This feels like a deliberate tactic to take money from families rather than support them. Between the lack of timely support, an unenforceable refund policy, and a membership program that punishes parents, Outschool comes across as untrustworthy. Families deserve transparency and fairness, not policies that trap them into losing money.

I'm confused how there are not thousands of negative reviews about how they are stealing money from parents?! Their new refund policy only grants a refund within 24 hours of signing up for a class. They have numerous tactics to get you to prepay for expensive semester length classes. If anything happens - you need to change your schedule or the teacher is a bad fit, etc., and you have to drop out, you just lose all your money. This time I lost $500. They don't pay the teacher when this happens, they just steal the money. We've been taking tons of classes on there for four years straight. I'm done they will not get another $ from me.

Ms. Tracy teaches rules to solve multiplication problems. There is no memorizing times table facts, which is what I actually wanted. I paid $80 and feel it was of very little help.
I also don't like that the teacher referred to the kid's parents as mommy/daddy OR mommy & mommy OR daddy & daddy. That does not align with our values and I was appalled to hear her say that. She could've just said "parents."
After hearing that, we did not continue with lessons, so it was a big waste of money!
UPDATE: Out School edited my review on thier site and took out half of my review. Shame on thier dishonesty!

I am an excellent tutor with years of experience. I am also a college educated person. I applied for Outschool and was declined. I believe it is because they are antagonistic towards Christians. I was going to offer a Christian history course. The left is ruining children and education. I was simply going to look at Christianity from a historical and scholarly lens. Stay away, they are the AntiChrist.

I got on the platform during covid, and was doing great. I was set to have 310 new students beginning my flex classes this fall. I setup a referral group on FB recommending the platform, and I recommended 258 teachers. We are suppose to get $200 for each teacher referred. Then all of a sudden they closed my acct. I lost full access to all of my curriculum I was using for flex classes, and all of my classes were canceled. I lost 310 students! I tried to message support but it was non existant. That occurred on August 17. Now on 9/13 they wrote back and told me they do not have to honor the teacher referral program since I no longer have an acct. Wow! So the $51,800 referral they were suppose to pay is now gone. But all of my students are lost. Beware everyone! This platform is very shady. Google you will see they are doing this to many teachers.

I found out on Sept 1 that they were still registering families in my classes. I created another email address and logged on, and was able to register for my class and pay. So they are accepting payments for classes when I am no longer able to get on the platform. After 24 hours I asked for a refund, they said I could only get a pro rated refund, so then I realized they are keeping my classes and others on the platform to get a week or two out of each class in hopes the parents do not realize the class is unmanned for awhile. Very wrong on so many ways. See full video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAzb7grjmyM where I click my past links and I am able to show you how I can still register and pay.

My daughter is educated in ways we could never get in any other setting. My son is going to rejoin for high school this year after seeing how flexible my daughter's schedule is while getting "real" education (as she calls it). My son knows how much "fill" goes into his days in his school, while my daughter's Outschool classes are focused and she never goes unanswered. She is 12 and knows how to put together business cases, manage her time and schedule, cook a 5-course meal, is going into Algebra II, etc. She thinks ahead because she has a mix of daily and weekly classes; it's teaching her to approach each day as an important day, instead of the "only 3 days until the weekend" mentality. The fundamentals are so strong with the class sizes and the montessori style break-outs. My son's school is just managed chaos, with so many miserable teachers; Outschool has the best educators I've ever met. There is accountability in that parents may post any review and watch the class to make sure it's meeting expectations. We've have parent-teacher meetings and the teacher welcomes feedback, even has shifted things based on our suggestion (something that would never happen in traditional schools). I am still blown away after 3 full years and just wish the majority of education was just like it is on Outschool.

I agree with the complaints below. They lack extreme accountability and only care about your money, not your child. In cases of proven error on their end, they repeatedly fail to correct their errors and take appropriate action to resolve the matter. They lack extreme integrity and consistently demonstrate a gross lack of ethics. Not something we should expose any child to

Outschool demands cameras to be used in order for kids to participate on the platform. The platform is used by students in various countries. Online privacy matters and instances of online piracy is a high risk, as it is inevitable that oversight is not strict in certain countries to combat online privacy issues or online piracy. There's really no control over what people do with your child's image in the recorded class, especially if the players are out of the country. As an alternative to having children recorded, Outschool places families in another risk. If the child doesn't feel comfortable having a camera on to participate in paid classes, Outschool then demands a photo of the child and parent together. There is no public policy on what Outschool can or can't do with your child's image after they demand the photo to be transmitted non-encrypted electronically to their office. Even larger, more established fortune 500 companies with extensive security have been targets of ID theft. Outschool should eliminate the mandate for a parent to send a child's photo electronically non encrypted and/or they should reasonably create photo storage in a more updated, safe manner. A transparent public policy on what is done with a child's image is a basic necessity for parents to view if children not wanting to be on camera are forced to send Outschool photos. Most importantly, parents need to be aware that kids may leave the camera and audio on after a class is over. An Outschool teacher recorded a child's private home and audio well after the class time was over. There is no agreement nor allowance for some stranger to look into your home or listen to private conversation. There's no public policy made available to parents on Outschool to prevent teachers from doing so in the future. Experts know the dangers of recording any person, especially a child, in the privacy of their own home without consent. Talk about a nightmare once discovered. Given the complete lack of judgement for this teacher just for that, you already know for certain there are other problems with them. As others have depicted, teacher quality can vary. This specific teacher's example clearly shows her broad poor judgement, antiquated entitlement and manipulative behavior. An older teacher recording someone else's home and video interacting without that parents permission using Outschool as a platform shows a seriously tainted lens and a complete lack of self awareness.
Outschool can't have complicated camera mandates then allow a teacher to abuse a paying clients' privacy. Outschool can't just make for-profit decisions, they have to follow broader privacy regulations (sometimes varying by state), as well.

This platform is doing illegal things and taking advantage of teachers. Parents need to stop supporting it and teachers need to stop joining it.

I have taught and been a parent on the platform. They will not honor the teacher referral program, they do not provide teacher support, and the emails to teachers are very mean/unkind if a family needs a refund for any reason (even ones that don't involve you). They threaten teachers they will remove them if they don't pay pay refunds in 2 business days. They will email teachers threats about the smallest things it is a very toxic environment for teachers.

As a parent on the platform, the site has no family support. The site has many technology issues, and logs outs are common. If you try to message support you only get a bot and no follow up. Teachers will disappear off the platform, and your child is left confused.

Get out and stop supporting this platform.

My kids have been taking Outschool classes since the very beginning of our homeschooling journey back in 2017. Five years later we are still very happy with the site. There is so much variety to choose from and the site is reputable with consistent high-quality classes.

Teaching on the platform has been an absolute blessing for my family as well. Annually I average $75/hr working part-time hours. A lot of teachers who complain about not making money or getting enrollments have only themselves to blame; I often check their profiles and notice they have only 1 or 2 classes and a poorly-made bio video, class descriptions are riddled with typos and/or they have negative parent feedback. You have to keep working at your business, not sit there and wait for life to happen. I love teaching on Outschool!

Awful service with the 'team' - 30% to OS which renders you making next to nothing. They do not advertise your classes. They do not take plagiarism seriously. They are not a supportive environment for educators. They WILL make sure to get theirs and they will not support you in running your business. You're better off selling necklace widgets on Etsy.

My daughters took classes on Outschool for 4 years. Outschool disrupted the after-school business at the time~ by attracting great teachers and offering interesting teaching solutions for children in K-12. However, their customer service is appalling. If you have a problem, they are ineffective at solving issues and limited to copy/pasting responses (see pictures attached). Over the past three months or so, the Outschool platform requires to upgrade zoom--if not, the link for the class won't launch and your child if he/she is at home with a caregiver will miss the class.

The good news is that there's plenty of competition coming to this space.

Outschool is more concerned with getting your children pronouns right than solving basic technical glitches--can't they solve both? They are based in San Francisco after all!

Loved our classes for my kid's violin interest. He earned so much and had a wonderful tutor! There are other lessons too but I didnt try them yet will update after trying

I've tried many classes here, most were excellent but in a few cases the instructor/class wasnt so great so sometimes can be a hit or miss but overall it is a great value

My 8 year old daughter attended this class, I sat right beside her to ensure that she would pay attention. However, before the class even started, the teacher said she saw another child and kept asking who else was attending the class. I explained again and again that I was the mother and there was no other child attending, she still questioned me for quite a while, during the whole time, her tone was harsh, as if yelling at a little kid, which made me very uncomfortable. Finally the teacher said that maybe she mistakenly saw someone, and moved on. A few days later, I received an email from outschool, indicated that I was reported for letting multiple children attended the class! It writes"... There is no way to retroactively pay for your other learner who attended this class but please make sure that this doesn't happen again..." To my understanding, lots of classes are recorded, I would strongly suggest outschool to review the recording and show me the evidence that there is more than one kid attended that class!

Trying to figure out why the teacher insisted on another child attending the class, I realized that my another younger kid, she got curious and stopped by her sister briefly to watch what she was doing, but then she ran upstairs to play with her toys. When the teacher questioned me, my younger kid was already gone before I even sat down, I didn't think of it. My another daughter is only 6 year old, she has very different interest with my 8 year old, she does not like drawing, even if she has to draw, she likes cute animal doodles much more than 3D cityscape, she has absolute no interest in this particular class, and again, the FACT IS: she Did Not, and she has NO interest in sneaking in the class!

My advice to the teacher: Please do not accuse and report people just based on your assumption. You are not a detective!
My advice to outschool: you don't send out some nasty email to other people just based on one side of the story -- Even a judger will have to investigate, collect evidences, and listen to both sides of stories before any condemnation! Especially we are also your client, who pays for your service and expect customer satisfaction.

My son has enjoyed all the classes he's taken so far from Outschool. We haven't used it for his main subjects, just extracurriculars. One teacher has a Studio Ghibli art series and taught him how to make Soot Sprites from Totoro. Another teacher offers courses such as Design Your Own Zoo and Design Your Own Town- we didn't try the town one yet, but the Zoo was so much fun for my son. I love that they offer social clubs arranged by age and interest, as socializing has been difficult during lockdowns. They have ones for Minecraft, Mario and even Animal Crossing. I love that they run background checks on the instructors and have secular content which- while becoming more common- is often harder to find in the homeschool world. I also like that they are considered a vendor with most hybrid-homeschool charters, so the courses are covered by them.

Outschool educational classes being your choice for your child's education depends on two things: your child and which teacher you get. My daughter has taken some dance classes and all of the teachers so far have been wonderful and patient. She participated in a pre-K class where the teacher was not in control of the class so she struggled to stay focused or even hear her teacher talk over the other kids.

I applied as a teacher, and I am a retired teacher, and I don't know who manages the lessons, but they have no idea about education. I have tried to reach out to them, and you get no response, only "canned" messages, which is amazing to me. There are many sites much larger than them and at least you can speak to someone after going through different channels. I regret signing up for all it took to get in.

When I started homeschooling I wanted live online classes for my children not 1 every week or a half an hour a day like most online programs give and claim to have active teacher involvement with the kids. I found outschool and couldn't be happier. My kids take 3 or 4 classes a day, I reinforce what was taught in those classes. It has worked phenomenally. My daughter has gone up by two grade levels in math and a whole level in reading. My son is doing 4 grade math at 8 years old. I have never had any problems with outschool customer service. They always reply back to me within 24 hours. They even wrote me an email asking if they could send me a Christmas card. The teachers are sweet caring and passionate about teaching my kids. I really can't say good enough things about this place.