Frequently Asked Questions
at Redcomet.org
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Redcomet.org
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Hint ... Always available to you via our tab bar at the top of each page in our site: "our mission" "courses" "f.a.q." "home" "e-mail"
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What Redcomet.org is all about ... High School Graduation Opportunity Protection The Redcomet.org mission is to help schools help students stay on course for graduation. Redcomet.org is the easiest, cheapest, and most effective way for a school to have a program in which their high school students can make up credits needed to graduate from their own school. A Contact may register a student for as many courses as needed. Our program is designed to accommodate a school's flexible needs: either as a credit accrual program for individual students or to use our program for their complete alternative school curriculum. The schools can set up a full school day schedule around our courses. All a school needs is an educator who will serve as a helper or contact person for the student. (The course work practically administers itself online.) You register your school in 5 minutes for free! Each semester course costs only $125.00. No fuss. No big up-front fee. No big administration cost. A new way to administer our program is growing across America. Many schools prefer to let parents register directly. With the school's ADVANCE permission, a parent may register as a Red Comet Contact Person directly. If this is your school's approved method, then all a School staff member has to do is give the parent our website and let the parent register their student directly. This is up to your district to decide. We do all the grading within 24 hours (Monday thru Friday). When the student passes the course, we mail an official transcript to the school's registrar for transfer credit in cooperation with a public high school and school district that allows us to issue the credit. This school is a member of the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools. With all the ridiculously expensive programs that cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy into and become obsolete in 6 months, Redcomet.org is the future of credit accrual. YOU can set up Redcomet.org as a program within your school, a separate individual way, or in a way where you charge MORE than our low $125.00 fee to cover your cost of administration. Call us or email us and we can tell you how thousands of others are starting Redcomet.org programs across the USA.
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What a Redcomet.org Contact is and what the Contact's duties are ...
We are dedicated to making Redcomet.org the most convenient, affordable, and flexible program for credit retrieval in your district.
A staff member or responsible adult agrees to be the "contact person". The "contact person" registers for the Redcomet.org program at no cost. This registration only occurs once: it is good forever, once your district registers. This takes about 5 minutes.
Your staff helps the "contact person" in identifying students who need to make up credits to graduate. The student is enrolled in a specific Redcomet.org course. Enrolling a student takes about 5 minutes. The student receives a code to access the course on the internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Students work at their own pace and can access the materials from any computer with an internet connection (at home, at the library, or at school), depending on your own district's needs. Some Redcomet.org Contacts set up a specific time and day of the week for a regular meeting. Others meet daily. Still others let the student take the responsibility of contacting them when they need assistance.
Allowing students access to your codes is totally up to you. If you do not wish to allow access to your codes, then the students would need to do their studies while at school so you could logon to the testing pages yourself.
There are 5 section tests in each course. Each section has quizzes accessible by the student to prepare them for the section test. When the student is ready to take a test he/she contacts the designated staff person. Students cannot access our secure test site until a separate secret code is entered online by staff. Entering the code and assuring that the actual student is taking the test is all there is to actual "proctoring" of the test. There are no timed tests, or complicated instructions for the staff to read: simply put in the code and let the student take the test. This takes a few seconds.
Redcomet.org does the grading. The exams are graded online and then a grade report is sent to you, letting you know what the score of that section was. Even the essays are emailed to us and we grade them. We have 24-hour turnaround in most cases.
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What a Redcomet.org Parent Contact is and what the Parent Contact's duties are ...
A new way to administer our program is growing across America. Many schools prefer to let parents register directly. With the school's ADVANCE permission, a parent may register as a Red Comet Contact Person directly. If this is your school's approved method, then all a school staff member has
to do is give the parent our website and let the parent register their child directly. This is up to your district to decide.
ATTENTION PARENTS ...
BY POPULAR DEMAND OF PARENTS ... PARENTS WE WILL ACCEPT YOUR DIRECT PAYMENT BY CHECK OR MONEY ORDER. We also have an online Credit Card acceptance plan and we accept PayPal payments.
Please contact your school for advance permission.
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Redcomet.org payment policy ... Payment (of $125.00 per course) should be made out to Redcomet.org. Districts around the country use several ways to pay for the course:
PAY Redcomet.org DIRECTLY: The student or parent can pay Redcomet.org directly by Money Order, personal check, or by calling with Credit Card Information, or with an online payment through PayPal. The Check Number, Money Order Number, or PayPal Confirmation Number is required before enrollment can be accepted. Send the check or Money Order to:
PAY THE SCHOOL DISTRICT: The student or parent can pay the district. Then the district pays us either by check or Purchase Order. The check or Purchase Order number is required before enrollment can be accepted.
The district can send a Purchase Order for us to invoice all orders against. This way they wouldn't have to do a purchase order for every order. Give us a call and we will work it out.
Some schools set up a program where they pay instructors to run the program. To fund these programs they charge the students more than the $125.00 to take our course. Anything above the $125.00 is then used to pay the expenses of the program. This is totally up to you and your district, and does not involve our billing department.
Credit Card acceptance ...
A credit card payment option is now available. Please give us a call tollfree 1-888-730-1101. We will take your credit card payment and have your student enrolled in a matter of minutes. Remember, we will automatically invoice districts. They are cleared for credit approval when the Purchase Order Number is entered on the Student Enrollment Form.
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The Courses we offer ... At the top of each page, you will find a tab entitled "courses". Click on that tab at any time or Click Here Now! You will be taken to a list of all courses offered. We will soon have over 60 courses online. (If you have a curriculum, Visit our Employment Opportunities Section!)
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Time involved to complete a course ... The time it takes a student to complete a course depends on several factors: what the course is, how much time the student has to spend working on the course each day, if the student is allowed to work on the course at home, etc. Each and every course is approved as a one-semester course (90 hours of instruction) with the amount of material to justify the credit. We have given students 365 days to finish a course before our system removes them; however, students might complete a course in a week (especially around graduation day!).
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When you can start a course and how long do you have to complete a course ...
Students can enroll 365 days a year. Redcomet.org is online 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. We have no specific enrollment periods and no time frames.
A student can begin studying a Redcomet.org course as soon as the enrollment is complete (this takes approximately 5 minutes of time). Since we are a worldwide organization, we have students studying and testing at all hours of the day. Students remain active for 365 days - that's 365 days to complete the course.
All we ask is that students follow their individual school requirements as to when they should be online working on a Redcomet.org course and as to how long it should take to finish the course (ie. if the School Contact instructs a student to work at least 2 hours a day for 3 months - the student should follow these instructions).
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When and how you get your grades ... If both parts of the section test are received before 8 PM on a business day the grades/test results are emailed to the student's Contact Person the following day. If they are received after 8 PM on a business day, they will be emailed the 2nd business day after they are received.
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When your work needs to be done in order to have time for your transcripts to reach the school ... We prefer to have 2 weeks prior to graduation (or the date that the school needs your grades). We send the transcripts to the school registrar via US Mail delivery. Giving us the 2-week lead time allows time for the unexpected site problems, internet problems, acts of God like power outages, US Mail delays, etc. We MUST have at least 24 hours to grade the essays and tests.
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How your grades get to the school ... The official transcript is mailed by US Mail generally 2 business days after the last test is received. It can take up to 5-7 days for the transcript to get to the school.
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Providing our courses in printed format ... The cost of paper is much higher and some courses require online interaction, so we discourage it.
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Our accreditation procedure - will your state accept the credits ... Will your state accept the credits? YES, although it is ultimately YOUR school who has to authorize what specific credits are accepted for what specific student. If you would like further information, please email or call us toll free 1-866-968-9461. For further details, read on ...
Our transfer credit program is through an agreement with Toppenish School District in Washington State. Toppenish is a member of the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools. Our agreement with Toppenish is modeled after a similar agreement that the PASS Program used since 1982 in 28 states. Transfer credits between districts has been going on since the early 1800's and is a part of interstate trade and educational cooperation for decades between states. Toppenish is a public high school in the state of Washington and thus has authority to grant credits. The transcript will be a Toppenish High School record as if the student was a normal transfer student. Toppenish approves Redcomet.org course content. We send an approved Toppenish transfer credit to your school's registrar. However, it is your district's ultimate responsibility and right to approve or disapprove a transfer credit. That is why we insist a district registers and enrolls students in our program - or that the parent get prior approval from the school and then register as a Parent Contact Person.
We have tried to match the Texas, Washington, and California standards in our course content, thus ensuring that all 50 states can easily accept our courses. We have contacted all 50 state agencies, and work with some states who are now just starting to approve a system of accreditation for internet courses. As that process continues, there will be changes made to our courses as necessary. However, the bottom line is that no state has a formal approval process in place to date that makes state agency prior approval necessary and many state agencies have encouraged us to help districts solve the credit accrual problem by providing ways to help kids earn the credits they need to graduate.
Please feel free to click on this link to all state agencies and to pass on our number to your contacts in your own state:
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Our accreditation procedure - will your regional accreditation association accept the credits ... Yes definitely.
All school districts in the United States are in various accreditation associations based on their physical location. Since Redcomet.org transfer credits originate from a publc high school in the state of Washington, our public school partner is a member of the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools, which is automatically recognized by every other association in every other region of the United States. Unlike other online programs, Redcomet.org credits are accredited which explains why, in over a decade of service, we have schools across the USA from Hawaii to Massachusetts.
Therefore, for example, if your school is located in Mississippi, which is in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools region, the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools transfer credits are automatically recognized in accordance with state to state federal department of education rules which apply to all public school to public school transfers.
To put it simply, if a 9th grade student from one state public school moved to another state's public school, the receiving state would not expect the student to start over in first grade again, but might reserve the right to analyze his courses to make sure he could handle the curriculum at his new school.
Therefore, under guidelines promulgated by federal regulations, each regional association recognizes the other regional assocation's accredited schools.
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My state has its own state-sponsored e-learning program and says all other such programs must be pre-approved by them. Is this true? NO, it is not true..
Redcomet.org is NOT an online e-learning program and so is NOT subject to such state-wide pre-approvals that e-learning programs are mandated to qualify for. Since ours is an accredited TRANSFER credit from a PUBLIC high school in Washington state, Redcomet.org, (unlike e-learning programs) is specifically NOT under state jurisdiction but under FEDERAL jurisdiction regarding state-to-state transfer credits. Obviously if one moves from Alaska to North Carolina in fifth grade, the state of North Carolina cannot make Alaskans start over in kindergarten. The same concept applies to Redcomet.org credits.
However, it is important to remember that individual Districts in each state can choose to accept or not accept our credits. We do not force districts to accept our credits, instead we insist that all parents and students get pre-approval from their district.
Let's face it ... many state e-learning programs use these approvals to limit their competition. We think this is a perception that is bad for parents and students and usually costs the districts more money in terms of taxes, funding, etc. Competition is always a good thing.
We will report state abuses of pre-approval to the federal government if we feel we are being restricted from using state-to-state federal transfer credit authority. We will also strongly defend any violations of the Interstate Commerce Act laws and regulations. WE strongly object to not giving kids every available resource to graduate on time from their own high school with the lowest possible costs to taxpayers, districts, and parents.
Redcomet.org is NOT an online e-learning program. We ARE a national state-to-state TRANFER credit recovery program. Therefore, it is up to each district to decide to use us or not for their credit accrual purposes.
Please report abuses of state authority to our president who will contact federal and state educational authorities. Usually this is just a misunderstanding and can easily be corrected with a reading of this FAQ. Please print it out and give to whoever raised this objection. If that does not correct this misunderstanding please email Kevin Jackson, the President of Redcomet.org (Kevin@Redcomet.org).
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Can your District grant its own credit for Redcomet.org courses ... If your district would rather grant the credit themselves instead of receiving transfer credit from our public high school in Washington State, get in touch with Kevin Jackson, President of Redcomet.org. It's easy to do and we will send you the agreement. Call Kevin toll free at 1-866-968-9461.
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Trouble shooting ... login problems ...
Easiest way ... call toll free 1-888-730-1101 and we will walk you through it … but … here are some hints:
IGNORE the dialogue box entries which may have another code in it from a previous entry. Type your code (login) in just as if it were blank.
Are you typing in the correct login and password for the area you are trying to get into? Are you sure you are trying to get into the course you are enrolled in? It's easy to click on the wrong course.
Logins and passwords are case sensitive. This means you must type in your login and password exactly the same way you did when you registered. That's why we suggest you print off the confirmation of your registration/enrollment page. It shows you exactly how it was typed in. It recognizes the difference between capital and small letters, and also other things like spaces, underlines, etc.
Rule of thumb: if you KNOW you are typing in the login and password correctly, then it is probably asking for the other login and password. For example: you are positive you are entering the student login and password correctly, but it still won't work. If you are sure the student is registered for the course you are trying to get into, the system is probably asking you for the Contact login and password.
Use student login and password to get into courses.
Use Contact Person login and password to get to the page to enroll a student and for students to access the Section Tests.
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Is a course scope and sequence available?
Yes, although most people use the handy index found in the courses themselves. Just give us a call at 1-866-968-9461 and we will provide whatever you may need for your specific purpose.
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Are the course provider's credentials available for review?
Yes. Just give us a call at 1-866-968-9461 and we will provide whatever you may need for your specific purpose. There are certain legal policies and personnel agreements that prevent their posting on the net and prevent their release without the person's prior permission so just give us a call. In short, our author's are quality teachers and other professionals that are world class. If you need to know their specific talents please contact us and we will make the arrangements.
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What about teacher-student interaction? What about chat rooms and student to student learning?
Yes, but this is entirely the responsibility of your individual school district and the Redcomet.org Contact person. Since we have designed our program to be used in any flexible way the school district requires, we assist districts on a case by case basis on things like teacher-student interaction and chat rooms. (Frankly, we feel that most of our students are in a hurry to get the credit they need and have other things to do with their lives besides hanging around a Redcomet.org chat room - so we don't have one; however, we do have Live Help online - you can either chat with a customer service representative or leave an email.)
As we have been working closely with a number of our districts and the educator who is the Redcomet.org Contact person, we have found there are such things as intense teacher-student interaction and chat rooms taking place at the district level. Since many of our courses are used by state virtual schools and other charter schools, we see our curriculum used in conjunction with many chat rooms and platforms.
Just give us a call at 1-866-968-9461 and we will provide whatever you may need for your specific purpose.
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What about student assessments? What about pre-testing etc to find out what course is best for the student?
Our Redcomet.org program's strength is the fact that we REQUIRE a local district contact person or at least prior approval from a district employee who is in charge of ordering our courses on behalf of the student. Therefore, we depend on professional educators at the student's own school to provide testing and to choose the right course for the student.
If you are a parent or student and have concerns about the job the professional educator at your school is doing for you, please give us a call at 1-866-968-9461. We pride ourselves on providing local educators what they need to perform excellently for you in their role as a Redcomet.org Contact person.
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What about technical requirements and expertise to use Redcomet.org? Are there minimum specifications? Do I need special computers or programs?
We are so proud of the fact that we go out of our way to make sure you only need access to the internet and a simple computer to use our program. We try not to load up our courses with lots of useless “bells and whistles” that slow down the downloading of our materials or, worse yet, won't run on your computer. We know that there are those who believe in lots of toys and bells. Those same people probably have no sense of the fact that many schools are strapped for money and simply do not always have the latest computers. We try to keep our materials high quality but simple to use.
If you are a parent or a student and have concerns about this issue, please give us a call at 1-866-968-9461.
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Do you provide data and grading information? Do you have statistics on course effectiveness and student outcomes?
YES. Just give us a call at 1-866-968-9461 and we will provide whatever you may need for your specific purpose. Remember that grades and transcripts are confidential and there are many state, federal, and local regulations that must be considered before we will release certain data. However, we have always had ample data for any requests. We have DETAILED student records, test results, and percentages relating to the pass rate of each course we sell.
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Do you provide communication like email, chat rooms, bulletin boards and things like that for your students?
YES, but we do it through the local districts and existing programs that are free. We keep our price down by asking our students and educators to use existing free programs. We cannot figure out why we should reinvent something or charge you more for something that already exists for free.
Since we depend on your district to be our partner as a Redcomet.org Contact person, we know that they will help meet this need. If you are not getting something you feel you must have from them, just give us a call at 1-866-968-9461 and we will provide whatever you may need for your specific purpose. We have strategic partnerships all over the United States and in 4 countries and we will meet your needs.
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Are my grades confidential? Can anyone hack into them or get information that I don't want out there?
Your grades are COMPLETELY CONFIDENTIAL and are not even kept on the WEB. They are kept in our super secret computer at the headquarters. Your grades are not even networked so they can't be hacked. However, we do store them for future legitimate use in a safe secure manner consistent with law.
If you have any other detailed questions regarding our confidentiality policies, just give us a call at 1-866-968-9461. WE NEVER RELEASE GRADES BY PHONE. DON'T EVEN ASK!
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What about teacher training? What about on-going software training? What about professional development?
YES, but we do it through the local districts who are already on staff and receive this from their own districts. This is how we keep our cost down. There is NO special software to buy or use. Everyone knows how to get on the internet so it's so simple that we don't stick the districts with some ongoing training costs that we come back to collect later like other companies do to the taxpayers of the schools.
We are a no-brainer and if you can get on the net you can use Redcomet.org.
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What about Administration policies? What about intellectual property rights and all the legal stuff?
Users:
Authors:
Everyone:
Bottom line:
Warning:
If you have any concerns about this policy just give us a call at 1-866-968-9461.
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