Halstrom Academy

Halstrom is an excellent school. The teachers are very knowledgeable, and able to impart the material in a way that enables the students to learn. The flexibility of scheduling is a plus, as is the overall learning environment. The one-​on-​one teaching has been very beneficial for the student in our family. I would not hesitate to recommend the school to others. Our student is very social, and has kept in touch with his public school friends. He helps them with their homework (college prep math). We feel that he is very well prepared for college. The administrator at the Huntington Beach campus focuses on the individual student, and just seems to know what he or she will require to be successful. All in all, we have had a very positive experience.

My 10^th Grade son has been at Halstrom for one semester and it is the best academic experience he has had. He is enrolled in one of the on-​line public schools (started there because of his acting), but they don’t offer a lab with their science classes and also dropped their Honors classes as well. So, Halstrom to the rescue!
My son has pretty much always been an «A» student but we’ve never felt like he was actually learning anything in a lot of his courses. He also was never particularly enthusiastic about learning. There has been a huge change in both of these since he’s been at Halstrom and we’re trying valiantly to figure out a way to enable him to take more classes there.
Zac pointed out to me that because of the 1:1 teaching, he is in a position where he absolutely has to know the material. He used as an example learning the periodic table — in a regular classroom the teacher can ask the kids what the symbol for a certain element is and the likelihood of at least one of the students knowing it is pretty high, so it isn’t necessary for him to know it to move on in the lesson. At Halstrom, it’s just him, so if he doesn’t know it there’s no getting around it. So subject mastery is pretty much guaranteed.
Probably the most important thing that has happened with Halstrom is that Zac is expressing an enthusiasm in school. He’s always done it, done well, and moved on, but never with the enthusiasm he has now (although he is 16 and social life is important). He talks about what he’s learning, finds it difficult to understand why I don’t get some of the «easy» chemistry stuff because with the instruction he’s received, this class that he’d been dreading really is quite clear to him. He’s encouraging me to read the books that he’s reading in his Honor’s English class so that we can have discussions about them.
I could go on and on, but I’ve pretty much made (and belabored) the point. I wish that Zac could take all of his classes at Halstrom for the rest of his High School years.