Keeping It Catholic - Review of Our Lady of Victory

Catholic Homeschool Review

Our Lady of Victory

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+Our Lady of Victory

421 S. Lochsa Street
Post Falls, Idaho 83854

Phone: (208) 773-7265

Fax: (208) 773-1951

E-mail: info@olvs.org

Website: http://www.olvs.org

Financial Aid Available: No

Special Needs Services: Yes

Payment Plans Available: Yes in reference to tuition; inquire about monthly or quarterly payments. In most cases, books must be prepaid.

Our Lady of Victory offers curricula for grades K-12. Families may choose full enrollment, the satellite program, or separately purchase materials.

A Special Note: OLV is unique in that any family, whether or not enrolled, can purchase all materials from the school's inventory. This includes the complete program at any grade level, or individual texts, and/or an entire grade level's lesson plans (elementary years). At the high school level, individual course plans are also available. More on enrollment options and books at Our Lady of Victory...

Full enrollment includes instructions about scheduling, lesson plans and tests, record-keeping, teacher services like the grading of major tests, report cards, honor roll, eighth grade and high school diploma. It does not include the cost of books which must be purchased separately. However, books kept in good condition may be sold back to the school.

Enrollment into the satellite program means that parents assume total responsibility in correcting assignments, issuing grades, and record-keeping and submit this information to the school.

With a majority of Catholic texts and supplements, OLV offers an exceptionally well-balanced program. OLV means what they say when it comes to following the Catholic Church's teachings that "religion must permeate the curriculum." The only exception in this area is the Saxon series (for math) and the Christian science series at the high school level. (They have completely replaced the use of any Abeka and Bob Jones materials.) In addition to Catholic readers and the lives of the saints, OLV also recommends classical literature selections.

The school is very flexible about their outlined 38 week schedule, as they understand real family life. OLV prefers to have student work submitted as frequently as possible (while 2 week increments are suggested, they are not required). The day-by-day lesson plans, especially in the elementary grades (k-6), point out the Catholic thread woven throughout all subjects. Progress reports are issued at the quarter mark.

Incidentally, OLV's philosophy concerning kindergarten is that young, fine minds are ready for more than we expect; thus,the school provides a full learning schedule for young children. They also believe that "most children do possess the fine motor skills to write in cursive," so they introduce printing followed by the art of handwriting in the latter half of the year. Of course, parents can can adjust accordingly.

OLVS offers both an Online Bookstore and paper catalog from which they sell individual books for grades K - 12. The Bookstore usually offers hundreds of titles, including exclusive reprints of Catholic textbooks and literature by their publishing arm, Lepanto Press. The reprints are hard-bound, quality editions.

Lepanto Press has reprinted over thirty titles on the subjects of Catholic religion (like the Our Quest for Happiness series, including answer keys), grammar, history, science, literature and geography. They also have a "Bargain Basement" section which generally consists of inventory OLVS no longer uses in their curriculum.

Since so many saints and blesseds tread a specific liturgical path, Our Lady of Victory's official stance is in support of the Latin Tridentine Mass, as promulgated by Pope St. Pius V. However, they do not require that those enrolled with their program share the same view. Our Lady of Victory, a subsidiary of the League of St. Michael, is a private Catholic school and is not affiliated with any other organization. The staff of Our Lady of Victory has always recognized Pope John Paul II as the true Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vicar of Christ, and the valid successor to St. Peter.

The texts recommended for both the full and satellite programs offered by Our Lady of Victory include the following:

In religion and art, the books used from grades k-12 are Chat's with God's Little Ones, Leading Little Ones to Mary, the New Catholic Picture Bible, the Rosary booklet, The Way of the Cross booklet, the Baltimore Catechism series, Treasury of Catechism Stories, My First Holy Communion (paperback, full color), Bible History, Douay-Rheims New Testament, Our Quest for Happiness series (for grades 8-11), The Story of the Church and Apologetics. Art in the lower levels consists of various Catholic coloring books like 1-2-3 Coloring Book; Angels Coloring Book; ABC Coloring Book, The Apostles and the Evangelists and Let Us Go to Bethlehem. The school plans on expanding on the subject of art at a future date.

The language arts texts are primarily Catholic, and almost all of them are in color (excluding workbooks). The list includes Traditional Catholic Spelling and Poetry (books 1-4), Catholic Stories for Boys and Girls (hardbound), Little Angel Reader A and its accompanying workbook, Saints for Children, the Catholic National Readers, Writing Capital and Small Letters, Catholic Writing Skills (a consumable penmanship workbook) , Phonics is Fun (a secular workbook), Writings with Phonics, Writing Can Help (Catholic, an OLV exclusive handwriting practice workbook), Voyages in English (the 1961-62 Catholic series), Exercises in English (professionally printed, paperback), little Catholic readers like God Loves Us All; Good St. Joseph; Our Friends the Saints; The Rosary booklet; The Miracles of Jesus; The Way of the Cross, Tiptoes, The Angels, Stepping Stones, Parables of Jesus, My First Prayer Book, My Life with God, My Day with Jesus, God Gave Me the Gift of Language (a consumable, comb-bound language arts book for grades 2-3), The Research Paper (secular), English Arts and Skills (a hardbound Catholic language arts/composition text reprinted by Lepanto) and 38 Basic Speech Experiences (secular).

Reading selections include but are not limited to Ahead of the Crowd, No Place for Defeat, Of America (Volume I), their own Art-Literature reader, various Mary Fabian Windeatt saints' biographies and Vision books, Our Lady of Fatima (by William Thomas Walsh), Outlaws of Ravenhurst (by Msgr. Benson), Fr. Marquette's Journal, Edmund Campion, Hero of God's Underground, St. Catherine Laboure, Across Five Aprils, Set All Afire and Lay Siege to Heaven (both of the latter two by Catholic author Louis de Wohl), St. Joan of Arc by Mark Twain, Stories of St. John Bosco by Peter Lappin, The Song of the Scaffold, The Glories of Mary and The Passion and the Death of Jesus Christ (both of the latter two by St. Alphonsus de Liguori), St. Francis of Assisi (by G. K. Chesterton) and The Woman Shall Conquer ( by Don Sharkey).

For Music, the text Songs for God and Country includes sheet music and spans grades 1-3. (Victory now offers an accompanying, professionally recorded audio tape or CD so that children can follow along with the sheet music.) OLV does not have a required music course after grade 3 at this time but they do plan on introducing the study of classical music in the near future.

Math spans arithmetic, math, algebra, geometry and trigonometry. Resources are secular and include Arithmetic Instruction Manual, The New Point Book, Working with Numbers, Practical Arithmetic, Saxon math ( starting in 4th grade with Saxon 54 and continuing with the series through high school); Amsco's Algebra (secular, an alternative to Saxon at the high school level); Schaum's Outline Series Theory and Problems of Geometry, Schaum's Outline Series, (Second Edition), Trigonometry, and Schaum's College Algebra (the last two are used in conjunction with one another).

Science as a subject includes a Catholic series updated to include latest scientific information. They are the Lepanto Press reprints of Science and Living in God's World, the foundation for the science curriculum from grades k-8. Teacher Manuals (for grades 2-3) assist parents to delve more deeply into the subject that the actual texts lead one to believe. Grades 4-8 have separate answer keys but no teacher manuals. (The secular texts Seaside and Wayside and Animal Life serve as science supplements in the early elementary years.) Beginning with the freshman year, OLV uses a Christian series written by Dr. Wiles, including Exploring Creation with Physical Science, Exploring with Physical Biology, and Exploring with Chemistry. Other materials used at the high school level include Evolution Hoax Exposed (Catholic) , Review Text in Health (Catholic, written by a religious brother and a nun), and a first aid guide.

History resources across the curriculum include How Our Nation Began (Catholic, hardbound Lepanto Press reprint), My World of Neighbors (Catholic, hardbound Lepanto reprint used for geography), American History (Catholic, a Lepanto reprint originally written by Catholic Fr. Goebel and other Catholics), Our Old World Background (1955 Catholic history text), Fr. Furlong's Pioneers and Patriots and The Old World and America, Anne Carroll's Christ and the Americas,Warren Carroll's 1917, the secular Quest of a Hemisphere supplemented by The Reign of Christ the King (a pamphlet by Catholic apologist, Michael Davies), The Naked Communist by W. Cleon Skousen, the anti-Communist classic, Masters of Deceit, by J. Edgar Hoover, the former Director of the F.B.I., and Pope Pius XI's encyclical, Atheistic Communism. High school civics texts includes The Measuring Tape, by Frank Denke (a study of the Catholic Church's teaching concerning social structure, all based upon papal writings) and Christian Citizenship, another exclusive Catholic textbook written by OLVS.

Current Tuition Costs for Full Enrollment (does not include the cost of books but does include cost of lesson plans):

Registration Fee: $25 first year, $10 subsequent years

Tuition fee: grades K-6 $200; grades 7-12 $250 with a 10% discount for every child after the first enrolled.

Satellite Program: Cost of lesson plans $85

Individual lesson plans for grades 7-12 are $25 per subject to purchase separately, if they enroll with one course, the cost is $50.00