The SOAR (Student Opportunities for After-School Resources) program began in February 2006, based on a request from parents in the Shadowood Mobile Home Community. SOAR was formed through a partnership with Booker T. Washington Elementary School, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, and the Latino Partnership of Champaign County, an association of "public and non-profit organizations that seek to develop and improve services for/with members of the Latino/a community." Currently, the after-school program is coordinated out of the Center for Education in Small Urban Communities in the College of Education, and serves 43 Latino students in grades 2-5.
The program is intended to support Champaign Unit 4 School District's Transitional Bilingual Program. This program attempts to prepare students for an English-only high school environment by gradually introducing English-language pedagogy into an originally primarily Spanish curriculum. In the fall of 2011 the SOAR program moved with the Transitional Bilingual Program to Garden Hills Elementary School in Champaign.
According to its website, SOAR "draws on community funds of knowledge theory to build bridges between marginalized families and the school, help children develop a positive identity, and improve in-school learning."
In 2011, the SOAR program was the recipient of the CAEPE (Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement) Project Award.
