SC Education Department, Riley Institute to invest $1.3M in learning leadership program

South Carolina’s Department of Education is partnering with the Riley Institute at Furman University to invest $1.3 million in a new after-school and summer-learning leadership program.

The initiative, called Afterschool Leaders Empowered, will train a cohort of 60 educators and community leaders in how to use after-school and summer programs to restore learning loss caused by the pandemic. Furman’s Cathy Stevens, director of the White-Riley-Peterson Afterschool Policy Fellowship, was quoted in an article appearing in The Post and Courier.

Citing data from the South Carolina Afterschool Alliance, Stevens said many parents aren’t at home when school lets out, and for every child placed in an after-school program, three more are waiting to get in. “The agrarian schedule where children get out at 2:15 does not work for working families,” she said.