My Experience With EFP12 Online Through NIDES: What Parents Should Know
It’s 7:12 a.m. at my kitchen table, two Aprils ago, and my 16-year-old son Leo is shoving his mainstream high school math textbook under a pile of dirty hoodies, eyes red from an hour of panicking before I even got up. “I can’t go back,” he said. “I’d rather drop out than walk through those doors again.” Bullying had tanked his already significant social anxiety, and after a full semester of skipping first period to hide in the library bathroom, he was three credits short of graduating on the traditional timeline. Our high school counselor tossed out a name I’d never heard before: NIDES, the online EFP12 program. I’d seen questions on local parent groups asking who’d done EFP12 online through NIDES, but I’d never paid much attention until that morning.
I called the NIDES advising line that afternoon, while Leo was out walking our golden retriever to calm down. I expected a sales pitch, or a long list of hoops to jump through, but the advisor just asked what Leo needed, explained that EFP12 (Evergreen Foundations 12) is a 4-credit graduation requirement alternative that focuses on real-life skills instead of textbook exams, and said we could start the next week if we wanted. The whole call took 18 minutes; I still remember checking the kitchen clock when we hung up.
Leo set up his workspace at the end of the kitchen table, next to the toaster, where our tabby cat likes to nap. He liked that he could do his work between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., after his walk and before I got home from my part-time admin job, instead of waking up at 6:30 a.m. for first period. But the first three weeks, he never answered his assigned teacher’s emails. I hovered, asked him every night if he’d checked his NIDES inbox, and he just shrugged and said he’d get to it. I was convinced we’d wasted the $25 registration fee, that we’d have to go back to the old nightmare of fighting him to go to school every morning. Then the teacher sent an email that wasn’t a reminder about overdue work. She’d seen Leo comment on the optional class discussion board about local trail maintenance—he’d posted a photo of a fallen tree he’d helped clear off our neighborhood hiking trail—and she wrote: “That’s my go-to after-work run. Thanks for getting that out of the way. Let me know when you’re ready to chat about your first project, no rush.” That’s the thing no one tells you about NIDES EFP12: the teachers are used to working with kids who don’t fit the regular system, so they don’t do the same punitive thing regular high schools do.
A lot of parents I talk to assume EFP12 is just an easy credit for kids who don’t want to work. That wasn’t our experience. Leo’s first major project was building a monthly budget for the independent living he wants once he finishes high school—he’s wanted to be an electrician since he was 12, fixing broken bikes for neighborhood kids. He had to interview a working electrician, add up rent, tools, truck insurance, groceries, even the cost of a monthly camping trip he wants to take every summer. That’s way more engaging than the generic 12th grade essay on confederation he would have written for the regular credit, and he still talks about how that assignment made him realize he needs to put a little extra away for tool replacement every month.
I’ve picked up a few practical things that might help other parents considering this. First, you don’t need to be your kid’s teacher. A lot of parents worry they’ll have to grade assignments or teach material, but NIDES provides all the curriculum and all grading is done by their certified BC teachers. I only helped Leo proofread one draft of his budget summary in the whole 8 months he worked on the course. Second, ask for communication adjustments upfront if your kid struggles with formal email. After the first month, we asked if his teacher could do 10 minute monthly check-ins over the phone instead of email, and that made a huge difference—Leo was way more likely to show up to a quick call than draft a formal email. Third, schedule one low-pressure social activity before you even start the course. It’s easy to end up with your kid just sitting at home alone all day, since there’s no built-in recess or group work. We signed Leo up for one afternoon a week of volunteer work at the local hardware store, where he got to help customers with small projects and chat with other people who like building things. It didn’t have to be a big team sport; it just had to be something he picked that got him out of the house once a week.
It’s not perfect, though. Some of the core units are a little outdated. The unit on healthy relationships felt like it was written 15 years ago, full of generic advice that didn’t relate to Leo’s experience recovering from bullying. But when he asked if he could reframe the assignment to write about building healthy boundaries with new friends, his teacher said yes immediately, so that was a fix that worked. It also requires a little more self-motivation than regular school, which can be hard for kids who struggle with executive function. Leo had whole weeks last winter where his anxiety flared up and he didn’t do any work, but NIDES gives you a full year to finish the course, so there was no penalty for pausing. That flexibility is the whole point, honestly.
Leo finished EFP12 three months ago, and he’s got all the credits he needs to graduate this spring. He starts his electrician apprenticeship in September. His annotated budget is still taped to the side of our fridge, with scribbled notes about tool costs and campground fees in the margins. Parents still message me on our local parent Facebook group, asking if EFP12 online through NIDES is worth it, if it’s a joke or if it actually counts for graduation. I tell them it’s not for every kid. If your kid thrives on in-person interaction and rigid daily structure, it’s probably not going to work. But if your kid is drowning in the regular high school system, if they need more time to breathe, and they need a graduation credit that actually lines up with what they want to do after high school, it’s a solid option. Leo still has bad days where he sleeps in and doesn’t get any work done on his pre-apprenticeship modules. But he’s graduating on his timeline, not the one the school board set for him. That’s more than we thought we’d have two years ago, and that’s enough for me right now.
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