Are you ready to SOAR to new heights this summer?
By RHMS eighth grade student Maria Pangalos
Life is a journey, not a destination. Why not enjoy the ride and make the best of it? Get ready to turn your can’ts into cans and your dreams into plans because Rocky Heights Middle School (RHMS) has just the thing for you this summer.
During the month of July, RHMS is offering a unique learning experience program known as SOAR (which stands for succeed, opportunity, advancement, and reinforcement) offered to the incoming sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students. There are choices of one, two, or three week courses that take you on an educational adventure. Students also have a choice of taking up to three courses a day, with each course lasting about 75 minutes and the last course ending at 11:55 a.m., which leaves the rest of the summer afternoon to play. New courses are offered every week and not every course will be repeated to ensure that students get offered the widest variety of differentiating classes as possible. Ranging from 5 to 15 students per teacher, SOAR enables more one-on-one help with the teacher, which helps the student better understand the select subject.
This isn’t your typical, boring every day summer school. SOAR offers multiple courses from advanced algebra to survival skills to babysitter training. Brandon Marasigan, a current RHMS seventh grade student who participated in SOAR last summer, definitely recommends it to anyone who is looking for a little extra help in any subject or someone who wants to get involved in something fun over the summer. He mentioned “I really struggled with math and I didn’t have very good grades in that subject, but after SOAR, when I came back to school I could already see my improvement start to kick in and I was really glad that I invested my time in the program.” Brandon further remarked, “I also took a robotics class, which I found to be really creative and I met one of my present-day friends there as well.”
A little help can go a long way. It might be that extra mile that gets you the promotion you’ve been after, or the “A” for which you have been working tirelessly. SOAR can help you get to that extra mile. Just remember, you pave your own path to success, and every door leads to the next. To view the classes offered through SOAR, visit www.RockyHeights.org, click on Student Opportunities, and then select SOAR.
