Four years after becoming a finalist for a prestigious national award, SOAR Academy is in its new home in south Augusta and welcoming students.
Nestled amongst old-growth trees, the former convent opened as SOAR Academy in August and was made possible through the $500,000 award the school received for being a finalist in the YASS Prize awarded in December 2022.
Kenisha Skaggs began the school about 16 years ago after leaving a corporate learning center. The school “took off” when her husband, Lucas, joined the team six years ago, she said.
“When we started, we had no money, no funding and 20 kids with ADHD and autism, and their parents were like ‘you know, school is just not working,’” Skaggs told a group at a recent luncheon that highlighted the school’s mission and its students. The event celebrated their relationship with the Arete Scholars program.
She started it in her attic as a tutoring program. SOAR then moved to an office complex for several years before moving to the dedicated space at In Focus Church, where SOAR was located when it was a finalist for the YASS Prize. The school was located in the West Town Shopping Center when it was damaged by Hurricane Helene.
The recent program highlighted the school’s partnership with the Arete Scholars program.
“Through private contributions from corporate and philanthropic partners, Arete Scholars awards need-based K-12 scholarships and empowers parents to place their children in private schools that best suit their unique gifts and learning needs. Since 2010, our partners have helped us grant nearly 25,000 K-12 scholarships worth more than $100 million,” according to Arete’s website.
At SOAR, some students have ADHD and autism diagnoses and need a specialized plan. The school works to accommodate their learning needs.
There’s a focus on the basics. She said many students are graduating high school without being able to do the basics, and to get a job, students need basic math and reading skills.
Not only do students concentrate on academics, but they work on life skills.
Skaggs was homeschooled in high school because her mother felt like there was more to her education than sitting in a classroom.
“My mom said ‘it’s not good enough.’ She said, ‘you’re going into the real world.’ I think you need to have public speaking skills. I need you to be able to have critical thinking,” she said.
And she’s using those skills today.
Students reach out to the surrounding community, establishing relationships with the senior adults setting up coffee dates, cutting their grass.
“Our students are in the community on top of this,” she said. “We’re busy every day doing something.”
Those elements keep students engaged and continuing to learn, she said.
The school received national recognition in 2022 with the YASS Prize competition. Receiving the YASS Prize was a rigorous process with several rounds of elimination. Skaggs said in addition to the funding, they’ve received mentoring from top leaders and have formed partnerships with other non-traditional schools. The networking piece has been an invaluable part of the process, she said, as they’ve gained more tools to help their own students, according to a 2022 Augusta Good News article.
Philanthropists Janine and Jeff Yass developed the YASS prize in response to COVID. They’d originally supplied funds for computers for Philadelphia schoolchildren to use during the pandemic, but they were disheartened that “technology was being substituted for learning,” Janine Yass wrote in an article for Forbes Magazine.
They decided they needed to do more for education in the United States.The goal of the YASS Prize is to support “class education providers who can tackle the big education challenges of the day and deliver an education for students that is Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding and Permissionless. It’s more than an awards program or a philanthropic endeavor. It’s a movement intended to transform education for everyone,” according to the YASS Prize website.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards, is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award and was named best local writer by readers of Augusta Magazine in 2024 and 2025. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here
