A SOARing Accomplishment In 21st Century Education

It’s amazing what can be accomplished when education is unleashed from the bonds of tradition. ‘Insurmountable’ challenges are embraced as opportunities. A path to certain failure can turn 180 degrees to head in the direction of certain success.

SOAR Academy in Evans, Georgia is a case in point – or, perhaps better put, a shining example – of a school that through a focused, individualized, personalized approach to learning in the 21st Century is accomplishing great things for students who found no reward, and less hope, in their former traditional public or private schools.

“We’re after the kids that no one wants…they come here [with] resumes that are just terrible: behavioral defiance, anxiety,” says parent and educator Kenisha Skaggs who,12 years ago, recognizing that existing school options were not meeting students’ needs – especially neurodivergent learners – created her own school (originally in the attic of her house), creating the chance for families to find a home with SOAR Academy.

“In a traditional classroom, they just shut down,” she explained. But at SOAR with its smaller environment, multi-sensory approach, and flexible schedules, all of that goes away.

Before finding their way to SOAR, many students had attended three or four different schools – public, private, homeschools – where they received little or no support, were unchallenged academically, and were often bullied and made fun of. Not surprisingly, they didn’t want to go to school and hated being there.

But SOAR celebrates cognitive differences, incorporating them into a customized curriculum map for each student. Redefining what the school day looks like, SOAR guides students joyfully toward academic success by providing project-based learning, a custom curriculum and personalized mental health and emotional support with six to one student to teacher ratios. The result is that kids want to come to school each and every day and look forward to coming to school, even on the optional days. “I don’t have to feel bad for not being able to read well,” said one student. “I don’t even feel embarrassed reading aloud now.”

The common education approach in most systems is a tendency to think of differently-abled kids as problems to be solved, and that is where public schools, in most cases, fall down. SOAR looks at these children as “opportunities” to be nurtured. Teachers offer various curriculum styles – including computer/video based learning and multi-sensory learning approaches depending on the student, as well as provide stimulating activities designed to address various learning disabilities including ADHD, emotional and cognitive challenges, autism, dyslexia, hearing and visual impairments, speech or language impairment, and developmental delay. Students spend most of their day in a specialized classroom that provides the individual attention they need. At the beginning of each school day students participate in community-building activities with all the SOAR students and on Exploration Fridays students leave their classrooms and are given the opportunity to connect to what they are learning in new ways.

In an interview with the local newspaper, SOAR student Cora talked about the transformation in attitude the school brings about. “I’ve seen kids that came in here on their first trial day. They seemed down and gloomy… Then after being here for maybe less than an hour, they start to perk up. At the end of the day, they don’t want to leave.”

SOAR has changed the trajectory of students struggling with learning disabilities. Nearly all of its students come to the school lagging behind (most far behind) where they should be academically. SOAR turns that around. In reading proficiency, for example, when children arrive at the school, they are, on average, two grades below where they should be. But after completing two years or more in SOAR’s program, 81 percent are reading at grade level.

The school also incorporates community programs that help develop life skills, and focuses on broadening learning development with guest speakers and activities designed to strengthen their understanding. SOAR also provides after school tutoring services for reading, writing, spelling and phonetics and offers pick-up services from nearby school systems for its tutoring program.

In 2022, SOAR was a Yass Prize finalist earning a $500,000 award to bolster its expansion. In April 2023, it celebrated the groundbreaking of a new campus set to open in Augusta, expanding its reach throughout its community and serving as a model for similar advocates in other states. Its biggest challenge today, however, is that parents at SOAR do not have access to the state’s publicly funded scholarship program because of some bureaucratic rules but Kenisha is hopeful she can not only overcome that challenge so that more families can have equitable access to this personalized education, as well as be able to grow throughout the state and into South Carolina and to advocate for more parents to have the option of using publicly-funded scholarship programs to pay for their child’s education.

That is the future of education and the solution to which educators, policy makers and parents across the country should look as they search for ways to create learning environments that put students first.