SOAR Academy (8123)
4107 S. FEDERAL BLVD.
ENGLEWOOD, CO 80110
Alternative Education Campus (AEC).
52
Total Students Served
Grade 9 - Grade 12
School District:
Sheridan 2 (0123)
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School Profile
About SOAR Academy (8123)
A MESSAGE FROM:
SOAR Academy
2025-2026
SOAR Academy is an alternative high school located in Sheridan School District 2. Our mission statement reads, ''SOAR Academy provides alternative pathways that teach and empower students to actively engage in their own learning, growth, and possibility, with innovative academic and social programs, in a safe, supportive community.'' At SOAR, we believe that you must serve the whole child, including relevant academic coursework and an array of social emotional supports. Our approach is uniquely …
designed to address the needs of the whole child, and to empower students to believe in and meet their post-secondary goals. Part of our mission is to provide students relevant coursework and credit recovery options that will support skill and knowledge acquisition, in order to graduate high school, successfully transition to college, post-secondary training, or the career of their choice. At SOAR Academy, we do our best to ensure metro Denver?s most vulnerable students graduate from high school, complete post-secondary education or training, and obtain meaningful employment. Established in 2009 as the Student Outreach and Academic Recovery (SOAR) Program at Sheridan High School, SOAR was created to address the growing need for dropout prevention and credit recovery services in Sheridan School District 2. Since that time, SOAR Academy has grown to the meet the changing needs of the students we serve. In August 2012, SOAR Academy became a full-service alternative high school. In January 2016, SOAR Academy moved out of the basement of Sheridan High School into its own building, giving SOAR students, staff, and parents an even greater opportunity to serve Sheridan and Denver Metro students in a more comprehensive manner. After seven years in our standalone building, SOAR Academy is relocating back to Sheridan High School beginning in the 2025?2026 school year. This transition returns us to our original location and opens new opportunities for collaboration with district staff and students while maintaining our commitment to a safe, supportive environment for our unique student population. Due to our school improvement initiatives, we have seen an increase in attendance, completion of credits, percent of students passing classes, GPA, and the amount of students taking advantage of concurrent enrollment opportunities. We are currently in the process of building new and more relevant courses for implementation in the 2025-2026 school-year, focusing on literacy across all content areas, and creating an academically focused master schedule designed to improve our overall efforts towards heightened student performance. In addition to our standard schedule, we have implemented and maintained a blended learning program that has grown in success since 2017-2018, to support students that have barriers that are preventing them from making it to a brick and mortar school on a daily basis. Finally, we have created a GED pathway that students have used to complete their studies, graduating and attending the same post-secondary opportunities as our day school students who seek their high school diploma. We are also implementing multiple tiers of intervention in both math and literacy programming as well as an ELD program to support our struggling readers and EL's. In addition, we have added many different social emotional learning supports such as throughout SOAR Academy and believe that the work we have done to meet student social emotional needs has had an impact on our student's increased attendance and academic progress.  Our Students: SOAR Academy serves youth, ages 14-21, who are at-risk of school failure and/or off-track to graduate. Nearly all of our students meet at least one of the criteria that the State has identified to classify students as high risk, i.e. failing 2 or more classes, truancy, low standardized test scores, drug and alcohol abuse, dropping out of school and/or being severely behind in credits. The majority of our students come to SOAR Academy needing to make up credits in order to receive their diploma. More than 90% of our students are behind in credit. Approximately, 82% of our students qualify for free and/or reduced lunch, 80% identify as having a race/ethnicity of minority, and 9% of our students are English Language Learners. Over 95% of students at SOAR meet the ''at-risk'' criteria for Alternative Education Campus designation. Currently, 10 of our 78 enrolled students are identified as experiencing homelessness, highlighting the need for our wraparound services and supportive learning environment. As an alternative high school, we serve students and families who reside in Sheridan, Englewood, Littleton, Aurora, Denver, Thornton, southern Jefferson County, Westminster and Commerce City. Several of our students travel over an hour every day to attend school, and we have a highly mobile student population, more so now that Denver has become one of the most popular places to live in the U.S., and because of this, rental rates are skyrocketing in Sheridan, forcing some of our families to move to Aurora and other places further out of Denver metro, searching for affordable housing. Approximately 50% of our students are new to SOAR Academy every school year, and this past year, we had an average student re-engagement rate over 3 years of 65%.  Our Approach: SOAR Academy offers 3 different pathways towards post-secondary success. Our day school schedule is from 7:40-3:40 daily with staff working extra hours to match the needs of our students as they arise. Such a schedule provides additional opportunities for students to complete coursework at an accelerated pace and participate in before and after school extended day tutoring, additional skill building classes, and other extracurricular opportunities. Further, our day school pathway allows students the option of attending 5-7 class periods per day in a basic day school model of instruction similar to that of a comprehensive high school model. Outside of the class offerings, time for extra study, additional assistance, re-teach/re-learn opportunities abound. During this brick and mortar style offering, an on-line opportunity also exists for both credit recovery and for students who prefer to learn in an on-line atmosphere. As an added benefit to this model, a hybrid schedule that combines any arrangement of periods to meet their scheduling needs to allow for more latitude to their lives outside of SOAR Academy. Secondly, we offer a blended learning program where students are able to complete classes on-line both at home and in-house. We want our students to have options and then help them successfully navigate whichever scheduling option meets their needs. Finally, and new to SOAR Academy this year, we offer the GED program for yet another pathway towards post-secondary success. We are proud to provide a safe and supportive educational environment that supports the cognitive, social emotional, and developmental needs of youth with their long-term success as our primary focus.  SOAR Academy provides a comprehensive array of academic and social emotional programming designed to personalize each students learning experience and address his or her individual goals. Our school includes: Relevant Coursework with Smaller Class Sizes Blended Learning Program Individualized Credit Recovery and Graduation Plans One-on-One Support (Tutoring) Skills-Based Intervention Courses Credit Recovery & Credit Acquisition Web Based Software Post-Secondary Advisement Reading and Math Intervention GED pre-testing and appropriate program placement Access to free GED testing and tutoring via teachers and online ELD Programming Special Education programming Extra-curricular offerings Excursion learning opportunities (Camping, hiking, fishing, climbing, skiing, animal refuge exploration, etc.) Family Engagement and Community based resources, including a strong partnership with the Sheridan Health Clinic Volunteer opportunities through Ruthy?s Closet-clothing/materials/home goods to support those in need, the Sheridan Food Bank and SOAR Academy?s Service Learning Opportunity.  Process for Developing the UIP: T he principal of SOAR Academy has implemented a shared leadership model to analyze and act on data. SOAR staff meets weekly during our professional learning community time every Monday to review academic, credit, behavioral, and attendance data. We then build supports and programming that supports the data that we analyze. The principal works closely with his instructional leadership team and other staff members to ensure that decisions are shared and our mission and vision is a living document that we use in part to make programming decisions. As a result of our regular leadership team meetings, discussions are had with all stakeholders on a daily basis to refine and improve our systems to meet the needs of our students. The building principal is confident that our UIP reflects the work we are doing on a daily basis, and most importantly, getting us results. The UIP is shared with the superintendent?s cabinet, which is used to broker resources, including district leadership members to support each schools' unified improvement plan. Routine updates to stakeholders like parents, guardians and other parties highly involved in the educational lives of our students are connected to our unified effort on a continuous basis throughout the year. Such parties that are involved in the design stages of the UIP are used as 'barometer' parties that serve as cultural check points. Using such entities assists in insuring the cyclical practice of the UIP is held in high regard by all so that maintenance or improvement can be had from quarter to quarter in accordance with state guidelines provided by CDE.  As a part of the Diagnostic Review, we invited parents to join our work at SOAR and the discussion as a whole. After the recommendations came in, we explained the process further and asked for input from all stakeholders involved, including parents and students. Using that information, the staff, leadership team and district leadership set about establishing the improvement strategies. The major improvement strategies that were chosen were designed with recommendations and input from all mentioned thus far. Teachers and staff were in discussion reviewing the strategies and tying them into more routine practices on a quarterly basis. Work with students, families through the staff and leadership team refer to the major improvement strategies often so as to bring the work full circle.
Final 2025 Performance Rating
Average SAT & PSAT Scores
SAT Grade 11:
- -PSAT Grade 10:
686PSAT Grade 9:
- -School Year: 2024-2025
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