About Us

Our History

Meridian Academy is a private, standards-based, online / hybrid grade school based in Houston, Texas. We help students achieve their educational and career goals by providing rigorous, technology-based education and instruction within a unique digital learning environment. We offer personalized, engaging instruction guided by experienced and highly qualified administrators and educators. Our aim is to provide our students with equitable learning opportunities, lofty expectations, growth mindsets, supportive learning tools, and real-world active and collaborative learning experiences. With the help of progress monitoring and assessments, as well as performance improvement-driven feedback, we give students what they need to succeed within a digital learning environment.

Meridian Academy’s culture and digital learning platform are founded on Vygotsky's social theories that propose meaning and knowledge are socially created constructs. We implement our beliefs by creating a culture where our 6^th through 12^th-grade students have the opportunity to feel a sense of social presence, cognitive presence, and place/teacher presence during their online learning and engagement. We encourage our students to become self-directed, lifelong learners prepared to achieve their personal and educational goals.

Meridian Academy was founded as St. Michael’s Learning Academy (SMLA) in Houston, Texas, December of 2008. By 2012, SMLA was accredited by AdvancED SACS CASI (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement). Over the past 16 years, we have provided over 2,000 students a second-chance opportunity to earn and obtain their high-school diploma.

In 2020, Zach was inspired to take this model global, so we changed the name of our school to Meridian Academy. Now Meridian Academy is Cognia-accredited as a digital learning environment.

For the 2024/2025 school year we are starting to prepare our students from middle school for high school and their future careers.

Our Visionaries & Owners

Christine Aboud
CEO and Co-Founder

Meridian Academy (MA), formerly named St. Michael’s Learning Academy (SMLA), was founded December 27, 2008. We are a private, for-profit grade school owned and operated by Zack Zakhem and Christine Aboud, who have collectively served and worked in the business, professional, and academic communities for more than 40 years. MA and its owners have a commitment to support and promote the advancement of individuals’ education in the Houston area community and globally.

Zack Zakhem
Co-Founder

Our Vision

A school that provides holistic instruction through Academic Excellence, Spiritual Astuteness and Health & Wellness for the whole person.

Our Mission

We focus on the wholeness of a person by ensuring our students enjoy quality education through a Cognia-accredited curriculum that integrates Christ-centered and value-based principles along with focus on a healthy life balance.

Our Values

Love: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you ..." - John 13:34
Respect: "Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves." - Romans 12:10
Support: "Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing." - 1 Thessalonians 5:11

These values align with our Joy-at-Work culture.