Sora Family on the Road with Lauren Golden

In the second episode of the Sora Journal Podcast, Rachel Reed, Family Relationships Manager, chatted with Lauren Golden, a middle school Sora mom, about traveling as a family, engaging in classes on the road, and how they found Sora. If you prefer to listen to the conversation, check out our podcast episode here. The Parent Corner segment begins at 12:24. If you want to learn more about RV families at Sora, visit this page.

Parent Corner Conversation - Sora Family on the Road

Rachel: Welcome to the Sora Family Corner, where parents and guardians share about our vibrant community. Today, we have the wonderful Lauren Golden, a middle school mom whose family travels in an RV while Lauren's daughter attends Sora. Laura, thank you so much for joining us today. Why don't you introduce yourself and your student. What grade is she in?

Lauren: Sure. My name is Lauren Golden and Daphne is my sixth, soon-to-be seventh grader, which feels kind of crazy. They grow up so fast, but it was awesome having her start Sora at the beginning of her middle school experience with Sora and ready to move on to next year. 

Rachel: Awesome. How did you first find Sora?

Lauren: Yeah, so our family has always loved to travel. And a year and a half ago, we had a crazy idea about what it would look like. We rented out our home and we started traveling full time and we started going through all the logistical things that would need to happen. Of course, there's the renting of the home, but one of the biggest puzzle pieces for us was Daphne's education and my husband did extensive research online.

I mean, he found every opportunity that was available, you know, whether it was through homeschooling or virtual schools like Sora. And ultimately, Sora is what caught our attention the most. And we did a lot of due diligence. It wasn't just, that we found it and we signed up. We went to every opportunity for parents to learn about the school.

And there are a lot, which is fantastic because we were able to get all of our questions answered and really learn about not just the approach to education, but the actual experience that our daughter would be having if she attended Sora and the entire community that our family would then be a part of. So those opportunities to connect with admissions, to meet the Head of Schools, and learn more about Sora really was what ultimately led us to apply to enroll Daphne in Sora. 

Rachel: That's amazing. So you talked a little bit about the experience of Sora. What has your family's experience been like so far? 

Lauren: It has been amazing. We have been completely impressed. You know, for us, it really started as a means to an end. We care a great deal about our children's education. And we knew that Daphne was going to need support beyond what I could probably offer her alone as her mom. And so enrolling in Sora was fantastic because it gave her that foundation and it seemed like we were just solving a problem.

But really, we were creating an entirely new channel for the trajectory of her education. We love the approach Sora takes and how it's so different from a lot of more traditional school settings that kids are in, whether that's public school, I went to private school, my husband was at a charter school, and really Sora has created this experience that's not like anything that we had gone through.

We love the approach to project-based learning, and my husband and I are both entrepreneurs, so we think sort of outside of the box. We love how Daphne is learning to really think critically about things rather than just going and memorizing and trying to get a good grade. That will only take you so far in life.

And we love that Sora, we feel is truly setting her up for long-term success. So, you know, we signed up for this online school so that we could travel, but what we've gotten is a leader. She has all of these opportunities to lead herself, not just in her education, but through clubs with Sora and through the House.

She's one of the co-leaders of her House. And so there's so much involvement for the students of Sora, but also for the parents to get involved. So we had no idea that we were really signing up to be a part of an online community. And it's been totally exceeding our expectations. And because we do travel full-time, it's been really fun because we've been able to meet some other Sora families in real life as we've made our way across the country.

Rachel: And that's actually what I want to talk about next. Can you tell us what it's like being an RV family on the road and still engaging in Expeditions, which is what we call classes?

Lauren: You know, it's not without its challenges, but not so much on the Sora side. It's more the RV side. If you're choosing to live full-time in an RV, you are choosing a life of problem-solving and you know, even just yesterday we traveled and realized we were crossing a time zone. So Daphne logged into Google Calendar. She reset the settings to make sure she knew what time to show up for her different Expeditions today. And so there's a lot of independence and sort of self-service starting leadership that comes and she's only 12 years old and she's able to adapt to these different things.

We have moved from the Central time zone all the way to the Pacific and all the way over to Eastern and Sora makes it really easy for us to do that in a couple of ways. Number one, her checkpoints twice a day with her House are at really reasonable times that we are able to make work no matter where we are in the country.

And secondly, Sora, before each Cycle gives you the opportunity to fill out a form about what times are going to work for you, whether you travel like we do, or your kid is involved in extracurricular activities in your town, you're always able to make those things work and sort of choose your block scheduling with what's going to work best for your family.

So it's nice because her education, her projects, her Expeditions, it's all being prioritized, but it's also fluid enough that our family doesn't feel like we're compromising these in real-life experiences that we're having if we're at a national park, or we're traveling to somewhere really cool and we want to go to a museum. We have those opportunities to do that as well. 

Rachel: Well, we absolutely love having you as a part of this community. Is there anything else you want to share? Like any advice for other traveling families? I know that we have a few families joining this fall for the first time and they are travelers.

I was on the phone call with them just yesterday and they were so I'm so excited to hear you and others as examples of families where this works. So give us any insights and give us advice for those other families that perhaps want to travel and do Sora. 

Lauren: Yeah. Well, welcome. We're so excited. I would say the word that comes to mind for our family is freedom. And Sora gives you a lot of freedom in your education. You know, you're not placing your child in a building from maybe 8 to 3 every day, there's a lot of work that's done asynchronously. And we see this as a really tremendous advantage. So they are showing up. There's so much leadership from the Sora faculty, whether it's their advisors in their house or the experts who are the teachers and the Expeditions.

There's a lot of support through office hours and making sure that your student is getting what they need, but the classes themselves, they're only taking, you know, three to four Expeditions at any given time. And so it's much more comparable to a collegiate experience where you have this block scheduling and you have a lot of free time in between both to live your life, but also to complete the projects and to complete all of that asynchronous work.

So it's really nice because your family is able to balance and prioritize what's important to you, and you're able to do it at times that work for you. It's not just sitting down for a block of time, you know, for the majority of your day and then working through the evening and going to bed and doing it again.

You have so much of a say in what your education looks like, both from the time standpoint and also what the kiddos choose to engage in. So the last thing I'll say about that is just, that we've been really impressed at how Sora really meets children where they're at and allows them to become their best selves.

So, our Daphne is a huge reader writer. That's her strength. That's what she loves to do. And unlike traditional schools where you sit down with a piece of paper and you take a test, and that's how you, you know, allegedly demonstrate your comprehension, this project-based learning approach is fantastic, and you're able to put yourself into it.

So Daphne has written poetry. She's created stories. She's able to use programs like Canva, which blows my mind because that's something I've been using as an entrepreneur in my business for a decade. She knows how to use it now, and I love that she's developing these skill sets on the computer because that is the reality of the workforce for many career paths today. She's in these programs, and she's able to create things that are in alignment with her strengths and her interests and continuing to build on those while still being exposed to a variety of Expeditions, learning about different topics, but expressing her comprehension in a way that makes her feel really good and empowered.

Rachel: This is so wonderful. Thank you so much, Lauren, for joining us today. Your insights were fascinating, and I hope those listening in enjoyed learning more about the Sora experience from one of our incredible parents' perspectives. Until next time, goodbye.