Virtual options offer some students safety

How students attend school this year has changed due to the ongoing spread of the COVID-19 virus. One main change is the option of attending classes using Microsoft Teams, which the district calls the Milton Flexible Learning Academy in its Health and Safety Plan. It’s better known as “Flex.”

Flex is new this year since COVID-19 has affected some students’ decisions about whether to attend school in person. High School Co-Principal Michael Bergey explained that flex is when students join a meeting with their teacher at the same time as those in the school building do to attend classes. Students can participate in full flex or part flex. Full flex students attend classes through meetings every day, while part flex students go into the school sometimes.

While both flex and cyber are virtual platforms, flex is different from cyber because there is more interaction with teachers through meetings. Cyber is more self-paced with students not with teachers unless a meeting is requested.  For a scheduled meeting time, cyber students have to contact their teacher to decide a time for a zoom meeting. This is usually done through messages or email.

Mr. Michael Bergey said that having the flex option available is a change, “This just presents a new challenge for our teachers and for our students,” he said. “Our teachers are doing a great job of working through and finding solutions for” the challenges made, he added.

According to Mr. Michael Bergey the main challenge of making the flex schedules was monitoring and keeping up with all requests for changes. Some of these changes include switching from cyber to flex or flex to cyber. To switch from flex to cyber or vise-versa the student and their parent will be asked why they want to switch and asked if possible, to wait until the end of a marking period for learning purposes. After the switch is verified the student is then enrolled and withdrawn from necessary courses to make the transfer.

In the district, from kindergarten to grade 12, there are approximately 2,025 students according to, Director of Education Dr. Daphne Snook. As of September 21, 250 of those students were flex students.

Out of the high school flex students “there are 55 that say 100% flex, and then 59 say ‘Flex-combination of both’ which I take mean they are part time flex” as reported in the spreadsheet, Data Assessment Manager Courtney Hamm was given. This year there are approximately 190 cyber students, flex students excluded, in the district. The high school has 106 cyber students this year while last year there were only about 30-40 cyber students in the district.