California is lagging behind other states, like Florida, in online education, in part because of regulations enacted nearly a decade ago to clamp down on independent study scams masquerading as charter schools. As a result, virtual schools face stifling rules dictating student-teacher ratios, limiting their operations to contiguous counties, and requiring teachers leading virtual courses – they could be living anywhere – to have California credentials.

Flex Public Schools, which will open the state’s first hybrid, “bricks and clicks”  schools, will be able to sidestep regulations governing non-classroom-based online schools and launch a truly innovative approach  to education.

Flex Academy San Francisco, which will open this fall with 275 high school students, and Flex Academy Silicon Valley, which will follow a year later somewhere in Santa Clara County, will offer onsite and virtual learning, with flexible combinations of students and teachers determined by changing needs of the students.

The schools will use K12 Inc.’s online courses that have been designed for home-schooled students connected to one another and their teachers through e-mail and web-based meeting tools. But at Flex Academies, the school’s onsite teachers, credentialed in subjects they’ll teach, will monitor their progress, act as tutors and lead discussions and science labs.

Students, according to the charter proposals, will follow a regular school day, 8:30 to 3 p.m., with activities and sports extending to 5 p.m. They’ll have regular periods in math, science, history, English and electives;  K12 offers 185 courses, including German, Mandarin and 11 technology courses. Flex Academy’s courses will be A-G approved, qualifying for admission to California four-year universities.

Whether students will meet in groups or go to a sofa with a laptop to study online will depend on what they’re working on and whether they’re “stuck.” Mark Kushner, who’s developing the schools for K12, says the blended model will allow individualized instruction in a small-school setting. Struggling students will get the most attention, working with teacher-coaches between 10 and 20 hours per week, while advanced students, working at their own pace, may work with teachers for half that time.

They won’t be staring at a computer screen all day, he says. They’ll also read books, do science labs and non-computer activities.

The school won’t be bound to student-teacher ratios, but there will be overall 30 students to every teacher/monitor/coach, with smaller classroom discussion groups, Kushner said.

The hybrid model will allow really good teachers to reach more students in creative ways. And it could create efficiencies in the use of staff at a time when traditional schools, faced with budget cuts, are struggling with larger, uniform classes. Parents from home will also be able to monitor their children’s progress.

But it will all depend on the execution of a program that’s intriguing on paper, along with effective hiring and good management.

Kushner, in the charter proposals, promised that the student body will reflect the demographics of San Francisco and Santa Clara County and has hired an  coordinator who will reach out to underserved communities. That should include handicapped students and English learners. The latter will be a challenge, because K12 curriculum wasn’t originally developed for non-English speakers, according to Stanford emeritus Education Professor Michael Kirst, who has been an adviser to K12 for a decade. However, K12, which operates virtual charter schools in 25 states, including the California Virtual Academies or CAVA, has English learners among its students.

Both Flex Academies will be overseen by non-profit boards. But Kushner is a vice president of K12, a publicly traded corporation that will be a sole source provider of the school’s curriculum and materials. If Flex Academy students outperform similar students in Santa Clara County and San Francisco, there will be pressure on district schools to start adopting digital education – and great praise of an innovative charter school. But if not,  then expect hard questions about the school’s financial relationships and scrutiny of how much state money K12 stockholders may be pocketing.