Local school officials are doing their part to assist families affected by Silicon Valley Flex Academy’s unexpected closure last week, coming less than a month before the start of the 2016-17 school year.
Morgan Hill Unified School District counselors, administrators and special education staff will host an Aug. 4 Open House event to review transcripts and student information for possible enrollment into district schools.
Superintendent Steve Betando said he met with Flex’s principal and K12 representatives the morning of July 26, hours prior to parents receiving notification of the Morgan Hill charter school’s shutdown. After being briefed on the situation, Betando recommended Flex include information on how to enroll at MHUSD schools to their families.
“We have the meeting Thursday (for Flex families), but we’ve already had many that have come into the district office,” said Betando, who has conversed with his school site leaders to determine availability and possibility of adding classes or staff to accommodate the late influx of students.
The first day of school at MHUSD is Aug. 16.
“We don’t know exactly how many (new students) will be coming,” Betando said.
Flex had reported to the county it had than 300 students enrolled for the upcoming year. But Betando said that number was 277 at closure, including 67 students with special needs. The number eligible to attend MHUSD schools is less because not all students live in Morgan Hill. However, Flex students who do not live within MHUSD boundaries but would like to attend school in Morgan Hill can make an interdistrict transfer request at their respective home district, Betando noted.
“If they still want to come to Morgan hill, we will consider (enrolling) them,” said Betando, but that’s based on available classroom space at each of the grade levels.
Flex, a free public charter school authorized through the Santa Clara County Office of Education beginning in 2011, was granted a five-year renewal from the county board back in November 2015. The 6th through 12th grade secondary school, located at 610 Jarvis Drive, boasted a blended learning model by combining an online K12, Inc. curriculum with offline lessons and small-sized breakout sessions.
But the school has a history of financial unsteadiness going back several months. County education officials have questioned Flex’s operational viability after discovering the academy had been submitting late and inconsistent financial statements and was regularly delinquent in its payment of county oversight fees and CALSTRS retirement payments.
Flex officials notified students’ families July 26 they would have to close before the school year starts because K12 decided to pull its funding for the charter school.
“You have to feel for these kids; some of them are seniors and they have to graduate and go onto college,” Betando said. “We’re going to try to find every way to get them in a program or school in our district….We’ll have to see how it sorts out.”
Morgan Hill Unified School District will host an Open House exclusively for Flex families at 7 p.m. Aug. 4 inside the Ann Sobrato High School Theatre. School counselors, administrators, and Special Education staff will be onsite to answer questions, describe the options available and to assist with transfers as necessary.
