Freestyle Academy of communication Arts and Technology is making changes to its curriculum to accommodate the needs of students as its popularity grows. With 100 applications submitted this year, the program is making adjustments.

Freestyle is offering an honors English class next year, giving students who wish to challenge themselves the option of receiving honors credit while continuing in the Freestyle program. All students take an English class and choose from film, photo or web design.

New students enrolling for junior year have the option at the beginning of the year to take normal or honors English.

“[Honors English] is what I intended to take at Los Altos, and this just allows me to continue with my plans,” sophomore Natalie Hon said.

Currently enrolled juniors and seniors had the option of taking the class this year halfway through the year.

“It’s a lot more analysis [of works] than actual writing, which is mostly what the regular English class is,” junior Alix Kaufman said.

In addition, the schedule will be reformatted to better fit students’ schedules. In the past, the juniors were required to attend the morning session while seniors attended in the afternoon.

“If an athlete can only join the program if she comes in the morning, then we want to help make that happen,” English teacher Gordon Jack said. “If a student wants to enroll in Freestyle and take a class at Los Altos that’s only offered in the morning, we want to give them the option as well.”

Students find the new schedule convenient.

“It’s easier because then we have time to come back and do sports, which was an issue for seniors this year,” Alix said.

With its growing popularity, Freestyle has to be more selective in its application process.

“We had over 100 applications for 64 spaces this year,” Jack said. “That’s more than we’ve had the past two years … making it harder to get in.”

The spaces available are split 50-50 between Mountain View High School and Los Altos High School.