With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, virtual schools became more prevalent. One of those alternatives for those unwilling to send their children to public schools is Sora.
Sora is a private, online school available to middle and high school students. Its stated mission is to turn today’s students into tomorrow’s change-makers by letting their students take control of their education.
Sora is virtual and asynchronous -- students go to online classes for a part of the day and work on their own to prepare for future classes during the remainder. Unlike other schools, Sora’s classes are based on their students’ interests.
WGCU spoke to Garrett Smiley, CEO of Sora, who said the public education system needs to change.
“Public education is running a learning model that was built hundreds of years ago and it’s simply not relevant to those roles and it doesn’t work for many, many, many students, so our philosophy is innovative education,” he said. “And we’re using this online medium, this remote school if you will, to have it scale to millions and millions of students.”
Smiley also touched on the approach that Sora takes compared to other public and online schools.
“Our classes are interdisciplinary, and what that really means is they’re relevant to the real world. So, they learn these different subjects to answer these interesting inquiries, these interesting investigations,” he said. “And at the end it all gets transpired back into a transcript that colleges understand, they’re fully credited, so our students can go to a university or a career.”
Sora is affordable for all kinds of families. Smiley said, “Our tuition is radically lower than most schools that work this way. Our tuition is $12,900 a year, but 50% of our student body gets financial aid from Sora.”
Students with a need for a different learning environment are perfect for Sora.
“We’re really looking for students who aren’t thriving in the traditional school system,” he said. “Not because they can’t, but because they feel like it’s irrelevant, they feel like it’s a waste of their time, or the joy that they once had about learning in space has just left their eye, so we’re really looking for students who want a relevant education and want to be more in control of their lives.”
Sora has been successful at changing the education system themselves. So-much-so that all of their students who want to go to college are able to do so. “We have a 100% college acceptance rate. So, our students who want to go to college are getting accepted to college, and they’re getting accepted to more upper-class colleges,” he said.
Sarah Montgomery's son Max attends Sora and she shared how Sora has helped him grow.
“Shortly after Max joined Sora, he started random discussions about current events, and more adult topics that we hadn’t really discussed with him in the past,” she said.
Eric Fisher, who’s the father of Grace, shared his thoughts about Sora as well: “At Sora, the thing she’s always been able to do is work her art into her projects. Sora allows her to integrate her gifts and skills, as well as learn to do more video presentations. Her writing, her creative writing, it’s blossoming. You have a whole culture that’s invested in the best interest of your child. They’re not invested in test scores; they’re not invested in making sure they’re reaching criteria because they know that will come in time. That if my child’s doing what they love, learning will come.”
Jacob LaClair is a WGCU intern. WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.