Friday Feature: Soar Academy
If you’re designing a school for kids who have been left behind, you’re going to need flexibility, an individualized approach, and a willingness to go at different paces. That’s exactly what Kenisha Skaggs has created with Soar Academy in Augusta, Georgia.
Kenisha worked at a tutoring center, but the methods they used weren’t working. In 2010, she began tutoring students in her home after school. Parents liked the customized multi‐sensory approach she used—which she mainly learned from her mom homeschooling her in high school. Some parents asked her to homeschool their children, and Soar Academy was born. After working out of her home for several years, Kenisha moved to an office complex and then to her current location in a local church.
Soar Academy is now a special purpose private school for children with individual education plans (IEPs), but it still has a homeschool feel. They use a variety of curricula depending on each student’s needs. Kenisha says 25 percent of her students have autism and require a multi‐sensory approach—touch, feel, music, sound. “Whatever learning style works best for them, we build the curriculum around that,” she says. She has found the individualized approach works better for all kids, not just the neurodivergent ones.
After more than a decade, Kenisha is still trying to reach children who have been left behind. One of her primary goals is to ensure her students have strong reading skills. Some of the students who come to her are two or three years behind for their age. “If we get kids reading well, they can teach themselves,” she points out.
