Morgan Hill Individualized
Learning Academy
An Alternative
Approach
to Learning
Written By Jordan Rosenfeld
Brian Paulson, Instructor
A
fter Flex Academy, Morgan Hill’s only digital-interface,
self-paced charter school closed abruptly in July of
2016, many parents scrambled to find alternative solu-
tions that fit the needs of their children. Unfortunately
these alternatives are few.
In the midst of the void created by Flex’s absence,
Superintendent Steve Betando sprung an idea on Vera Gomes,
principal of Morgan Hill’s continuation high school, Central
High School, and program director for the Loritta Bonfante
Education Center, which is situated on the campus.
“When Flex closed, there had been talk about charters
coming in to fill niches that public schools weren’t providing.
Superintendent Betando asked if we opened a school like
this, would we have interest?” Gomes told
TODAY .
She believed they would, and she was right.
They call their program the Morgan Hill Individualized
Learning Academy (MOHILA), a smaller but similar program
to the Flex Academy, in which students can work at their own
pace, online and in class without many of the pressures of a
traditional classroom or from peers. It is housed on campus at
Central High for now.
Gomes called 2016 its pilot year, in which they mostly
took in strays of Flex, but in its second year she feels it has
already begun to find its feet and serve the needs of specific
families and students.
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“This year it’s more aligned to students that want a smaller
environment, want to be able to accelerate on their own.”
It’s the perfect model for kids who are involved in
competitive sports where traditional school can be hard to
work around, for kids who want to work faster than their
classroom, or for kids who find a traditional classroom
limiting to their learning in any number of ways.
Using curriculum from a company called Edmentum,
they offer a compatible school day for kids in grades seven
to twelve, from 8:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. every day, with a
“mostly digital interface and individualized instruction with
the support of a teacher for tutoring, feedback, lab activities,
collaborative time, STEM activities, and more,” Gomes
explained.
She said that the digital program is a college prep program,
“just as a comprehensive high school would