Flex Center

The FLEX Center is a "school within a school" at Cholla Middle School in Phoenix, Arizona. Its current teacher is Randall Peterson, creator of the "Twilight Zone Project." It is a gifted program, and is interconnected with Flex Science, taught by Marna Coldwater. The Washington Elementary School District provides special education services for students identified as gifted. Cholla Middle School is home to a two-year program for the highly gifted, known as the FLEX (Flexible Learning Experiences) Center. To qualify for this program, students have scores of 97% or higher in all three reasoning areas on the Cognitive Abilities Test. This District Center Based program is an integrated social studies and language arts course, exploring world cultures and world literature one year and American history, government, and literature the next year.

Students work together in partnerships, groups, and independently. They are provided challenging academic activities augmented by high-school level textbooks and supplementary materials. The FLEX Center is a great place for students who need a challenging curriculum and who will need the critical-creative thinking skills for advanced courses in high school. The opportunity to participate in this program is available to students outside the Washington District if space is available.

The Flex students are slightly isolated from the "normal" students.