Superintendent’s Blog – What is Parkview Flex?
 Dr. Don Mayes PARKVIEW FLEX – October 10, 2018 One size rarely fits all. There were 275 different car models available for purchase in America in 2017. And very few of us want to eat exactly the same thing every night of the week. Modern life and technology offers us variety, options and flexibility at every turn, but education remains largely the same as it was when we were children. Education can be slow to change for good reasons. Most students spend one year in each grade and experimenting or significantly altering a student’s program of instruction could, in theory, leave gaps in a student’s educational foundation. It can also be difficult to re-tool staff and prepare families to “do school and homework” in a different way. But, as educators, we know that our current program is not right for every student. Some of our students truly need a different learning environment, program or structure. As one of the largest private schools in Louisiana, Parkview has the capacity, the resources, and the responsibility to be an influential leader in the education community. It is the desire of our staff and faculty to constantly challenge ourselves as we challenge our students to take calculated risks and stretch the limits of our current abilities. After years of research, planning, and discussion, Parkview opened a pilot program this fall that we are calling — Parkview Flex. Our staff identified and worked with families who had expressed a desire for a different type of program and we are grateful to the families of our 14 Flex Program students for partnering with us to “test” this new way to “do school”.
Our Flex Program is built around a high quality online curriculum. One that our team believes is of the same rigor as our traditional program. The Flex Program is currently housed on the second floor of the Youth Building on Parkview Church Road and looks very different from the classrooms that we have used for over 35 years. Our Flex students do not have desks, but instead work in rooms that look and feel more like living rooms than classrooms. Flex students have a similar workload to our traditional program students, but they have control over which lessons, readings, and activities they do each day and the order in which they do their work. This allows students to have more ownership of their education and to develop a stronger independent work ethic.
We are very pleased with our student and parent response to this Flex program. Our staff continues to catch a vision for new ideas and has been instrumental in making this concept a reality. I look forward to the transformative impact the Flex program can have on our students and community. Dr. Don Mayes, Superintendent |
