The new Raider Academy program at Bloomington High School provides an alternative for those in need of a classroom with fewer students or students in similar situations to them.
Raider Academy began development during the 2025-26 school year, targeting students who struggled to find success in the traditional classroom for certain subjects. It was launched after District 87 won a $125,078 per year grant from the Illinois State Board of Education [ISBE].
Raider Academy classes include certain subjects with smaller class sizes. It also holds space for larger classes of students taking online, asynchronous or other courses that are required credits to graduate, but were not taken by the student at the time they should have at BHS. This is most commonly because they started high school at a different school district with different requirements to graduate.
The program could also help District 87's efforts to improve its graduation rate, which was 76.5% last year — below the statewide average of 89%. District 87 officials say they're making progress, most recently projecting that 89% of students were on track to graduate as of the start of the school year.
"Just trying to get kids the credits that they need to be able to graduate on time," said Emily Waddell, associate principal. "So that's really the goal of this whole grant."
Results in the classroom
Tom Thakral is a math teacher at BHS who teaches students at Raider Academy. Only a handful are in his geometry class, which students said makes a big difference for their studies.
“My last classes, they were super fast paced, so if I had a question, my teachers wouldn't be able to answer because they were focused on the subject at hand, and if there were other students, she would go to them first,” said junior Pluto Wiles.
Wiles never asked a teacher questions in previous classes for this reason.
“But in here, it's much easier because there's significantly less students,” said Wiles. “I'm able to ask them [for help]. It's much easier that way, and this class is much slower so I can actually write stuff down rather than having to wait at the end of the class and stay behind, and then getting late to another one.”
Asking questions in math class was also difficult for sophomore Arabella Walls-Sawchuk, who said it would sometimes lead to ridicule from her peers. She was also hesitant to ask a teacher to slow down to allow her to catch up on notetaking. Now at Raider Academy, she said she is able to ask questions and take notes at the right pace.
“It's just a really beautiful thing,” said Walls-Sawchuk. “I really like Raider Academy, and this class is making me understand math a little more, and it's making me start to like math.”
Teaching at Raider Academy
The credit recovery classroom sees the most students at Raider Academy. Zachary Rogers is academic coordinator for the program and supervises students in the credit recovery room.
Credit recovery helps students in need of credits either from failing a previous course or from transferring to BHS from a different school district. Rogers said a common need is a world history credit, something that District 87 requires for graduation but many other school districts do not. Most BHS students take the class as freshmen.
“So rather than putting a bunch of incoming new-to-district seniors in a freshman class, I have like six or seven seniors that are taking world history in here with me,” said Rogers.
The classroom provides a nice change-of-pace for students, Rogers said.
“They can come in here and just kind of work at their own pace, have it be quieter, where there's less like peer to peer or like student-teacher interaction, and they can just kind of do their own things,” said Rogers.
Gabby Rivera teaches English at Raider Academy. She said the small classroom setting shows students that they have teachers looking out for them on a personal level.
“Research shows, sometimes engagement or students not being successful in a normal classroom setting, it could just come down to the relationship that they're able to build with their teachers, or with their counselors, or with a social worker, etc.,” said Rivera.
“So I think for the students, beyond just them being more successful in their academics, it's allowing them to be happier ... feel like they belong in the classroom. Feel like they are listened to and they are respected and heard for their struggles,” Rivera added.
Raider Academy also differentiates itself from the Regional Alternative School [RAS] in that it is not for students with more major behavioral issues.
“We're choosing students who maybe have their heads down during class, who maybe are just struggling with the material, but there's 20-plus students in a classroom, and they can't get that one-on-one help, or students who have social-emotional problems,” said Rivera.
