The Academic Institute (TAI), an accredited, alternative Bellevue private school that has served high school students since 1980, has founded a new middle school. The school has scheduled a complimentary college workshop for the general public.

“The current educational trend is that more and more students need transitional environments and custom designed learning,” said Executive Director Sherrill O’Shaughnessy-Alexander, a former elementary and high school teacher who founded The Academic Institute in 1980.

O’Shaughnessy is also a certified college counselor and a past recipient of the Shawn Marie Berry award from the Pacific Northwest Association for College Admission Counseling. The award is given annually to “those who have given outstanding and faithful service to youth.”

The Academic Institute will offer “The College Quest,” its workshop for parents of 10th, 11th and 12th graders, at 6 p.m. March 7. Pre-registration is required (see “services” on the school’s website, and admission is a generous donation of non-perishable food for Northwest Harvest. The workshop is for parents of all sorts of students, including those who learn differently.

The new middle school is similar to TAI’s high school, featuring small group classes with no more than seven students. Classes are held Mondays through Thursdays. High school students participate in special seminars, discussions and museum trips on Wednesday afternoons and spend Fridays earning work or volunteer credits. Middle school students take physical education, art and music credits on Fridays.

“We want to bring out the best in your student when grades don’t reflect that,” O’Shaughnessy said. A learning specialist is available and the school employs a modified Myers Briggs personality assessment, to “highlight students learning strengths, and guide them to the dream of their futures.”

The TAI student population includes students needing advanced academic work, as well as those with special learning needs. Some take classes in their neighborhood public school simultaneously, termed “dual enrollment.” Other students are home-schooled, receive academic coaching or individual tutoring, contract for distance learning, prep for SAT or ACT tests or attend Summer School.

TAI is state-accredited, and issues its own transcripts, which can be used for grade replacement. The school is located at 13400 NE 20th St., Suite 47, Bellevue.