Going the Distance


 Hillcrest High School student Sophya Batista takes Launch classes online to make time for the other most important thing in her life: boxing. Driven. That’s the one word that best sums up Sophya Batista, a student at Springfield’s Hillcrest
By Savannah Waszczuk

Hillcrest High School student Sophya Batista takes Launch classes online to make time for the other most important thing in her life: boxing.

Driven. That’s the one word that best sums up Sophya Batista, a student at Springfield’s Hillcrest High School who found herself in multiple Launch courses after moving among four high schools in one year. “By the time I moved to Springfield, it was too late in the year to get seated credit,” Batista says. That’s why she began taking classes online with Launch, but she quickly learned it was something she wanted to continue. “After I started online, I was able to get a job,” Batista says. “I work almost 30 hours a week and box 20 hours a week. With Launch, I can take classes, box and have a job and not be exhausted all of the time.”

Thanks to the flexibility of Launch courses, Sophya Batista works 30 hours a week, boxes 20 hours a week and keeps up with all of her school work.

School, work and boxing are all super important to Batista, who has dreams of working in early childhood education one day—and possibly even boxing professionally. “I started boxing in middle school in search of stress relief,” Batista says. “It keeps me sane and a little more calm. That’s the best thing about Launch—I can still learn, but at the same time, I don’t have to sit in a building for hours. It still allows me to do what I love.”