New Private School Offers 1-on-1 Teacher Time

Ron Hess sits in a brightly-lit office with desks, chairs, cubicles and whiteboards. It's a school less than a month in the making. The only trouble is, there aren't any students yet.

"We anticipate that happening any day now," Hess said.

Meanwhile, Brightmont Academy's staff of three teachers are preparing to challenge the way private instruction is taught in Mission Viejo.

The concept is one-on-one teaching. Students have the whole attention of the teacher, which Hess says helps strong students grow stronger and helps struggling students draw closer to their peers academically.

It's a concept that worked for Brightmont in its home state, Washington. Whether it works in its first California location remains to be seen.

Hess is betting it will work. He's been a school administrator for over 20 years in places like Joshua Tree, Carlsbad and Yorktown, Virg. He says he switched to Brightmont because he believes in the one-to-one teaching method.

"Research shows that's what works," he said."You can see great strides being made when you work one-to-one instruction."

He added that public schools are attempting a similar approach by adding small group instruction. It's a concept called differentiation, he said.

Differentiation is all about teaching different kids in different ways. It's a bit like the approach of a new charter school in Mission Viejo, .

Brightmont offers tutoring for kindergarten up to 12th grade, and class course work for 6th through 12th grade.

Now it's a matter of finding students.