By Pauline Cheng  Often, high school students are not as free spirited and stress-free as adults tend to think. Many have responsibilities, whether pursuing a lifelong goal or supporting a family. Students may sometimes experience moments of scholastic immobility, where their opportunity to graduate is seriously jeopardized.  That’s where the Scholastic Opportunities using Alternative Resources (SOAR) program can help. SOAR is an independent study program aimed at helping students either accelerate or remediate their high school progress. Whether a student is a professional athlete, model or parent, he or she is given another opportunity to earn high school credit while managing personal goals and life’s obligations. Rather than having to go to a school, students can complete the school work from home. However, there are many conditions potential SOAR students must meet to be accepted. “They must have the discipline and motivation to sit down and do homework for six hours,” said Evelyn Kheo, a SOAR counselor. “Attendance matters. If they don’t show for appointments, they are considered truant right away. After too many missed appointments, they can be dropped from the program.” Still, the SOAR program has some flexibility. Students can speak with a counselor about working at their own pace, finishing school early if desired or slowing down to take care of personal matters if necessary.   In the program, students complete one subject at a time during a three-week interval. Students are given one homework packet per week, which they must complete in its entirety to meet requirements. Kheo said that there is a common misconception that alternative schooling, like the SOAR program, is “bad” schooling or that kids who participate in these programs are always failing. Compared with conventional high school, SOAR is much stricter in terms of attendance, homework and enrollment. Incomplete assignments will not be accepted and students must meet with their teachers on the assigned (or rescheduled) meeting dates to receive credit. “Some parents have told me that they have never seen their kids do as much homework as they do in this program,” Kheo said. In addition, walk-in students are not accepted. All SOAR students who would like to enroll must first go through their individual counselor’s reference process, and then pass a reading test to determine their competence in the English language. Kheo said that some kids, less outspoken than their Caucasian counterparts, are unable to keep up with regular high school, but don’t verbalize their frustration. They do not ask their teachers for help, and as a result, do not get the attention they need. Soon, they may drop out and disappear. However, there are some cases where foreign students can participate in the SOAR program. Usually, the foreign students’ work and study habits would be reviewed by the counselors. If the student does well on homework and schoolwork, but fails quizzes and tests, he or she would be admitted into a two-week trial period. The counselor will evaluate whether the student can handle the SOAR program or not and act accordingly. Kheo said that if a student is looking to attend a four-year university after graduation, he or she must first notify a SOAR counselor to set up a schedule that fulfills the university’s entrance requirements. The regular SOAR program requires 44 credits to graduate, but there is also an “option two” program, in which students between the ages of 17 and 18 can graduate with a minimum of 22 credits. To quality for “option two,” the student must be able to pass both English and math portions of the California High School Exit Exam, keep a 2.0 grade point average, be involved in the SOAR program for at least a semester and graduate at the time appointed. In addition, a graduate of  “option two” must first attend a community college if he or she wants to go on to a four-year university. “The advantage for students in this program, especially those with personal or family issues, is that the counselor will take time with the students,” Kheo said, “Something, I feel, regular school can’t do that because there are too many students.”