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When Your Classroom Follows You Around The World

• Larry Zilliox • Season 3 • Episode 110

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What if your child's education could follow your military family around the world? For service members facing 7-15 relocations during a career, finding educational stability for their children often feels impossible. Each PCS move brings the stress of uprooting kids from schools, disrupting friendships, and navigating new academic systems – sometimes with devastating effects on children's confidence and performance.

Navy veteran Erika Nance faced this challenge with her two daughters. Her older child experienced the traditional pattern of constant school transitions, while her younger daughter found an alternative path through Sora Schools, an online education platform specifically designed to provide consistency regardless of location. As Military Liaison for Sora, Nance now helps other military families discover this powerful educational option.

Unlike conventional online learning, Sora offers a vibrant, interactive community where students engage in live classes with dedicated teachers and collaborate with peers globally. The project-based curriculum encourages creativity and independent thinking while maintaining academic rigor. Nance's daughter discovered her talent for baking through a humanities project exploring how immigration influences American cuisine – an opportunity that might never have emerged in traditional schooling.

The most remarkable benefit for military families is educational continuity despite geographical changes. As Nance's daughter said, "Mom, it doesn't matter what happens or where we need to go, because I can just take Sora with me." This stability eliminates one significant stressor from military life. Students maintain relationships with the same teachers and classmates year after year, building confidence rather than repeatedly starting over. Regional meetups and educational field trips further strengthen this global community of learners.

For military families weighing educational options, Sora Schools provides a tier-based tuition grant program based on total annual income, making private education accessible across all pay grades. The school's founder, Garrett Smiley, draws on his own experience as a military child to create an environment where these unique students can thrive academically and socially despite frequent relocations.

Visit soraschools.com to learn how your military child can maintain educational stability regardless of where your service takes your family.

Larry Zilliox:

Good morning. I'm Larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run this week. Our guest is Erika Nance. She's the Military Liaison for Sora Schools and this is an online private school organization that helps children all over the world complete schooling, but online, and they can be dispersed around the world. And she's the military liaison and I really wanted to talk to her about the services that the school offers to military kids around the world and the community that grows out of kids being in this environment, maybe throughout their entire schooling, so no matter where their parents are deployed, maybe they get an overseas assignment to Korea and it's an accompanied tour. You know, when you have this option, it also can help the family, because a lot of decisions are made and I remember this from my time in the Air Force that does the family come with me on this assignment, because I don't want to uproot the kids from school. Erica, thank you for coming and welcome to the podcast.

Erika Nance:

Thank you, Larry. Thank you so much for having me as a guest. I really appreciate it. Happy to be here.

Larry Zilliox:

Well, you are a veteran yourself, so if you would kind of start. You're an Army veteran.

Erika Nance:

Navy.

Larry Zilliox:

Navy. Okay, so start with. When it comes to your Navy career, why did you choose the Navy and not the Air Force?

Erika Nance:

Well, the Navy recruiter is who showed up at my high school.

Larry Zilliox:

Was that the only one? Yeah, oh, okay, wow, okay, so when did you go in?

Erika Nance:

So 10 days after high school graduation 1998. Wow Okay, I knew I wanted to join the military because I volunteered at William Boma Army Medical Center at Fort Bliss. I volunteered there for three summers.

Larry Zilliox:

Wow.

Erika Nance:

And I really got exposed to the healthcare system and said I want to do that.

Larry Zilliox:

Wow, okay, and Fort Bliss Okay.

Erika Nance:

That's my hometown, el Paso, texas.

Larry Zilliox:

Oh okay, yeah, oh wow. So you went into Navy. What did you do in the Navy?

Erika Nance:

So I was a hospital corpsman for 10 years.

Larry Zilliox:

Okay.

Erika Nance:

And then I navigated to the officer side. I was commissioned as a laboratory officer, oh, and then I served that, and then I transitioned to healthcare administration. So then I ended up at the Depends Health Agency for my final tour.

Larry Zilliox:

Here locally in Falls Church, right, yeah, wow, when did you get out? Tell us about the transition, yeah sure.

Erika Nance:

So in my career I definitely, like many military service members, I mean we really kind of put our all into our service and that doesn't leave a lot of room for family time, that doesn't leave a lot of room for connecting because you're constantly, you know, doing the military assignments and kind of prioritizing that. And so I have two daughters. I have one that's 25 and that I did the entire schooling process with, since she was, I mean, I had her while I was in the military, so she experienced, you know, I had her while I was in the military, so she experienced, you know, the typical things that kids experience as far as frequent moves, really trying to uproot and kind of reinvent themselves at every assignment. And then I have a 14-year-old that is going to Sora and you know just really stark differences of my approach from my first child and just kind of navigating that. And obviously as parents, you know the first one there's a lot of unknowns and the second one, you know, seems to benefit from the first experience.

Larry Zilliox:

Wow.

Erika Nance:

And, you know, not really by design, I guess not intentionally but while I was at the Defense Health Agency, some chronic medical issues started to come to surface, and then I ended up having a surgical procedure that really just completely did like a hard reset. I was no longer able to do a lot of things. I was, you know, wheelchair bound, you know very limited mobility, and so I was under care for about a year, going through the medical board process at Walter Reed and, you know, rehabbing and doing all of that and also, at the same time, my sixth grader, which is my eighth grader now.

Erika Nance:

But my youngest daughter was going to a public school and they also did COVID. So we had, like the COVID environment. You know I'm at DHA doing, you know, high tempo COVID response. You know, with the headquarters for medical it kind of just like you know, the world kind of collided right as far as like the different things and different aspects that were happening, and my daughter was really struggling with middle school.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah.

Erika Nance:

It was a really challenging environment. I didn't really feel supported with the school system, you know, as far as their academic needs. And I came to my husband. I said we know the outcome. You know we could just let them push through, try to do it, see if they come out okay on the other side, or we can really do something intentional about this. And so we started to explore different options and, in combination with my daughter and giving her that agency to say, what do you think about an online school and they were like that could be cool. And so we did the admissions process. Sora does a really great job of inviting the student to spend a day at Sora to figure out, you know, is this going to be, you know, an environment? And my daughter really liked it and so I said, okay, let's give it a try. I didn't know it at the time, but I really was blown away by the schooling system with Sora. You know, it just completely transformed her academic journey.

Larry Zilliox:

Well for our listeners. The webpage is soraschoolscom. S-o-r-a schools plural dot com. Take a look. They've got a lot of different programs and, of course, all different grade levels and everything.

Larry Zilliox:

But part of the problem with military kids is all the moving around and you know, mom or dad gets transferred and now I've got to make new friends and now I've got to go into a different public school system. And let me tell you, not all public school systems are the same. It really does depend on where you end up. You could be at an installation that's in a rather rural area and they wouldn't know a military kid if they saw one. They just throw kids into the pool and say sink or swim.

Larry Zilliox:

You could land like here in Northern Virginia where Fairfax County, loudon, prince William they are very aware of military children. In fact Prince William County actually has a county staff member solely dedicated to military children and integrating them into the public school system. So it really does depend on where you're at and what services might be available to you. Now DOD also has a program. They have personnel on installations that, that is. Their sole job is to help military children adjust, but it's not on every installation, it's really on just some of the major installations, so this is definitely an option. What do you think in your experience with Sora that makes them stand out? What stood out to you and said of all the options for online schooling, this was the one that you felt your daughter needed.

Erika Nance:

So my daughter and I'll just get a little bit of a background. So my daughter was very early on introduced to a Montessori style of learning. We were stationed overseas in Naples, italy. So my oldest was in the Dodia high school there, and then my youngest. She was ready for kindergarten. But you know, when I tried to enroll they were like she's not old enough.

Erika Nance:

She's like too shy to two months, shy of like the enrollment time, and I was like you know what she's ready?

Erika Nance:

She's ready to learn and I really don't want to like wait an entire year because I just anyway. So I enrolled her in the international school there, in like in the economy and the Italian economy, which did mostly English, but then they had a little bit of Italian learning experience, kind of really set the trajectory of how she learns. And what I noticed is that when we came back from overseas and she, you know, left that Montessori style public school just never really fit. And so during the pandemic, third grade is when we shifted to online, and then it was myself and my husband, you know we all were contributing to like the learning experience and then I just really realized that that is how she thrives, so she needs something different from the public school system. That is just. I mean many people experience in public school system. I mean it doesn't work for everyone and the same. With the DoDEA environment, when you have students that are not thriving and they need something different, parents can feel very isolated you know in the options that they have.

Erika Nance:

So a school system like Sora offers that academic rigor and it also allows students to select their classes and how they and their learning objectives as far as um with a project.

Erika Nance:

So it's a project-based approach that sora uses and that is really. And, to be honest, I didn't know what that was when I first enrolled my daughter. I just knew that it was um, student-led. As far as it was up to her, as far as how, you know, she would select her learning path, and that was the most attractive to me because it really kind of fit that kind of Montessori style transformation in how she approaches her academic journey, because now it's not just like, okay, it's a grade, it's a worksheet or like a test that no one really cares about and it's just, you know, it's not like really a hands-on experience at school, and at Sora they actually do get to select their projects and I can just provide, you know, one example, and the one that I love is she had like a culinary class in its humanities and they had to look at how immigration influences American cuisine, yeah, which is Hugely yeah, hugely yeah.

Erika Nance:

And the and part of that is, you know, looking at it from a way broader perspective. And that's how we look at life, right, as adults looking at it a bigger perspective, you know, going into like a more problem solving. You know, just aware of our global environment, which I don't didn't really see in a public education system yeah, environment which I don't didn't really see in a public education system. So being able to select. So they had to do a fusion recipe with another student from another culture and they had to collaborate on what that is and then also go through the history of those two cultures and kind of marry that and out of that they've discovered that they are a phenomenal baker. I was like, wow, who knew that you even had this talent? I don't think we would have found any of that at a public school.

Erika Nance:

They would have just continued to go through the motions and kind of painfully you know just, you know whatever, just to get the grade. And at Sora students are really encouraged to take charge of their learning right. And they're in the seat with their learning process. But they're also just satisfying all the basic requirements you know, because Sora is accredited, so they have to do, you know, all the traditional you know different aspects, but they get to be in the driver's seat.

Larry Zilliox:

So what were the two fusions? What was the dish?

Erika Nance:

So I'm from a Mexican background. Like I said, I'm from El Paso, texas, and the other student was German, so they did this I think it's some sort of pancake and the bizcochito, which is a cookie, and then they fused it together to make and it was actually really delicious.

Larry Zilliox:

That's awesome. Yeah, you're getting hungry just listening to that. Describe for us what that online environment is like. Is it a computer teaching them? Is it a person teaching them? A combination of both?

Erika Nance:

Yeah, no, that's a great question. So it's actually very to me scheduled. It's very similar to a college online program, but they also have kind of this structure around it. So they meet twice a day with their house advisors and they're organized into houses, very similar to Harry Potter. So they have the same group of students that they meet with in the morning and in the afternoon and then they attend classes. They have about two to three classes and they're 50 minutes long, so very similar to a college, and they're not there to do worksheets and things like that. The teacher is providing instruction, conversation and collaboration with the students and then, after class, then they'd work on their projects independently, because each student is doing a different project.

Larry Zilliox:

And so is this a live interaction, live, so it's not like a tape of a teacher just telling them, like you know, a math problem or anything Right, actual live.

Erika Nance:

It's live Awesome.

Larry Zilliox:

So once again, listeners. The web page is soraschoolscom. S-o-r-a. Schools with an S dot com In the community to the county where you live? Is this considered homeschooling?

Erika Nance:

It is Okay, yeah, to the county where you live.

Larry Zilliox:

Is this considered homeschooling? It is okay, yeah. And are you then eligible for whatever services are provided to homeschoolers, such as social interaction programs, sporting? I didn't know, but our neighbors years ago homeschooled their two boys and invited us to their graduation. And I'm like whoa, what is this out in the backyard or what, what is okay? And it turned out we went down to Richmond to the convention center and it seemed like every homeschooling kid graduating was there. There was hundreds of them, and they had a little banquet for us and I remember it fondly because they had made the mistake of setting the dessert out on the table before the entree and I treated it as an appetizer, which I think confused the staff. But they eventually got me another piece of cake, but I just didn't know such a thing exists. So wherever they are and end up, especially if they're in the United States, they can participate in all those kind of things.

Erika Nance:

Well, they can also. They can do that, but I will just say that Sora that's. Another added benefit of Sora is that it's a global community. So, for example, we just had a meetup in Atlanta where they said, okay, everyone is welcome to come, wherever you are, we're all going to meet up in Atlanta. We have another one coming. I think they just did one in San Francisco, Austin, we have one coming up in June.

Erika Nance:

And then for the middle school level, they have a big field trip that's actually coming up on. I think we fly out next Saturday to Orlando and what they do is have a. It's a class, it's part of the class, where they go and they spend a few days at Disney looking at the STEM aspect of how to design a ride, and then they the humanities portion of it is to create a story that will pair with that particular ride. So there's all kinds of opportunities and actually in my local area we have two particular families that we meet up with on a regular basis and they're all Sora students and we get to connect and, you know, just build community and it's really just growing tremendously.

Erika Nance:

And so that just means, more connections are happening.

Larry Zilliox:

So any idea roughly how many students are part of this community worldwide?

Erika Nance:

So right now I believe the it's I have to.

Larry Zilliox:

Ballpark, it Ballparking.

Erika Nance:

I believe it's 440 students at this moment.

Larry Zilliox:

Right and of course you know, and growing Right, yeah, yes, yeah, and so let's talk a little bit about the benefits for military children and military families. Me, if I'm wrong, but I see that the main thing is that continuity in not only education but being with your peers throughout the process. So whether you're in Spain on a military installation or in Indiana or Fort Bliss, wherever you're with the same kids and you get to be friends with them and I'm sure they interact offline. But what do you see as some of the benefits for the military family?

Erika Nance:

Yeah, I think for military families it really does serve as that linchpin of that continuity. I mean, like I said, I mentioned I had an older daughter that we had to uproot constantly and I'm just seeing the benefits now. And, like I had mentioned, I was going through the medical evaluation process. I wasn't sure am I going to be medically retired? Am I going to be, you know, am I going to PCS?

Erika Nance:

I mean we really didn't know what the outcome was.

Erika Nance:

And what I love about Sora and what my daughter was very excited about was that you know what, mom, it's okay, it doesn't really matter what happens or where we need to go, because I can just take Sora with me. And so that was really powerful when she had said that, you know. Because then that anxiety from my side as a parent of like, okay, yes, we will have to find and build, you know, local community, but as far as, like the schooling environment, okay, yes, we will have to find and build, you know, local community, but as far as, like the schooling environment, they have the same teachers, the same students and they can, you know, continue to build the confidence. I mean, because that's really what I noticed, you know, as a parent, every time you know that movement would happen. You know, the confidence would, you know, kind of sink a bit right, because, like, you need to figure out what's what, and so I can just kind of see the opposite in my 14-year-old, because they're building the confidence and there's nothing that's going to take that away.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah, right, you know, and every kid is different, you know you've got some kids that are shy, socially insecure, that don't make friends easy, and so those kind of PCS moves are really hard on them. Then you've got your, you know, kids that play sports and are out there and they'll play any sport and they don't have any trouble making friends on the team, you know. So I think you know a lot of it comes down to your children. When I hear private school, I think super expensive. No doubt there's a cost for SOAR schools. I mean there's got to be. But is there any kind of financial assistance or anything available for military families, some sort of sliding scale or you know where enlisted would not pay as much as officers? How does it work if a military family is interested?

Erika Nance:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for that question because affordability is really important for military families and Sora is very passionate about serving the military population. The CEO, garrett Smiley about serving the military population. The CEO, garrett Smiley, is actually a former military child and Sora understands that military families have a wide range of pay scales. So they have a tier-based tuition grant program that they offer based on total annual income for families.

Larry Zilliox:

Right, okay, again, listeners, the webpage is soraschoolsscom. As we kind of wrap up. I really appreciate you coming, I think. Well, you know, we just went through April, which is the month of the military child, and these kind of things are really important because these are the things that families struggle with all the time and it's it's the deployment and the impact that that has on the family.

Larry Zilliox:

The jobs that military service members have are stressful in and of themselves. Sometimes they're working in very dangerous environments, sometimes they're working around dangerous things. Not only you could be on the tarmac refueling planes and it seems like a pretty easy job, but you know there's inhalation, injuries, there's all sorts of exposure to chemicals and all sorts of things that you know you take home to the family, and everything you do has an impact. And uprooting the family is really a big deal. And when you talk about career service members, they are looking at sometimes 7 to 13, 15 moves over a 25-year career. It's crazy and, yeah, I know that. Well, the military pays for it, you know. And so, in addition to uprooting the family, there's you can't make a PCS move without it costing you money. The government does pay for it, but you know what when you get to that new house. You got to buy toilet paper. You know you got to buy a bunch of stuff. You know it doesn't have a screen door Well gosh, we need to buy a bunch of stuff. You know it doesn't have a screen door Well gosh, we need to have a screen door. There's all sorts of costs that are incurred.

Larry Zilliox:

Some families get dumped into installations, where our listeners know from previous episodes. 90% of active duty service members do not live on military installations. They are forced to seek housing in the community, which often is more expensive than what they're given for base allowance base housing allowance or they have to live far away from the installation to find something that's reasonably they can rent. So you have that. Then you have spouses that uproot a career and they're a professional, and it's a tremendous hassle for that professional to transfer their license, which means you have a minimum of probably six months where that spouse is not bringing in income, and so on top of that, then you're trying to get your kids into a different public school system. I really think that military families have to at least examine the option, because anything you can do to relieve the stress on the family is really going to benefit everybody, and so, yeah, sora schools may not be for you, there may be another program out there, but I I guarantee you that when you look at Sora schools, you're going to see quality education, that is, it's not cheap but it's worth the money. And when, because that is something that is going to impact your children for the rest of their life. I really do.

Larry Zilliox:

Thank you for coming and sitting down with us and talking about your experience. You know, these are the kind of things that we like to do. Episodes about that are resources that families sometimes don't even consider. Yeah, and so really, thank you for coming. Yeah, thank, you so?

Larry Zilliox:

much that are resources that families sometimes don't even consider. Yeah, and so really thank you for coming.

Erika Nance:

Yeah, thank you so much.

Larry Zilliox:

Well for our listeners. We'll have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. You can find us on all major podcast platforms. Like and subscribe. We're also on YouTube and on Wreaths Across America Radio. So until next time. Thanks for listening.

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