WhatWorksSC Continues to “Work” for Winners After Award

WhatWorksSC was originally conceived as an event that celebrates exactly what the name would suggest: what’s working in public education in South Carolina. For 15 years, the winning program, selected by a panel of expert judges who review applications, has been celebrated over lunch with much fanfare in front of peers in Columbia. But for many winning programs and top finalists, the formal celebration is only a small piece of the bigger WhatWorksSC picture.

“Being recognized as a finalist for the prestigious Dick and Tunky Riley WhatWorksSC Award for Excellence has had a transformative impact on York School District 1 (YSD1) Parenting Partnerships,” says Jessica Elliott, coordinator of YSD1 Parenting Partnerships/Family Resource Center (a 2023 award finalist program).

Elliott points to the numerous after-effects that Parenting Partnerships has seen, including increased community support and associated funding.

“With a deeper appreciation of how we support families, community leaders have provided substantial financial backing. Notably, the York Rotary Club has fully endorsed our innovative idea of mobilizing support for our rural school district. Their generous support enabled us to revamp an old activity bus, transforming it into the YSD1 Early Connections Mobile Classroom Bus, which was unveiled in May 2024.”

The mobile classroom allows Parenting Partnerships to provide essential educational resources to families in remote areas of the district.

Executive Director of Greenville First Steps Derek Lewis notes that his program has grown in credibility since being recognized as the 2023 WhatWorksSC winner.

“Being recognized helped solidify our role in Greenville County as a leader in developing and implementing proven strategies within our community,” he shares. “Since the recognition, we have been asked to lead collaborative efforts in parenting, home visiting, and childcare.”

Evidence-based activities and outcomes is a core feature of WhatWorksSC honorees that helps make their programs credible, replicable, and scalable. Applicants for the WhatWorksSC Award must demonstrate improved outcomes for students of South Carolina public schools with measurable impact and a grounding in research-driven best practices to be considered for the award.

Elliott echoes Lewis’s sentiment, stating that Parenting Partnerships has been elevated as a model program throughout the state: “Achieving finalist status has positioned our program as evidence-based, reinforcing the effectiveness and reliability of our services… Our program is now viewed as a model for other professional programs that aim to support families, further extending our influence and reach.”

As of last year, The Riley Institute has reinforced its evidence-based focus by adding capacity-building support to the WhatWorksSC prize package. Sally Morris Cote, associate director of research and strategic learning, now offers in-kind consulting services to the winner and finalists that is designed to help staff zone in even more on effective programming and measurable outcomes.

Carol Baker, director of outreach and community engagement at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities, and other representatives of 2024 WhatWorksSC winning program, Spark! Inspiring Tomorrow’s Readers Through Drama, recently participated in a strategic learning session led by Morris Cote.

“We joined the Riley team for a deep dive into survey design and logic modeling, and we left that session better equipped to reflect on our work, practices, goals, and results. We have new skills that we have already put into practice,” says Baker of the experience.

Baker also references the WhatWorksSC celebration itself—which was restructured in 2024 to feature an in-depth conversation with representatives of the winning program—as a notable part of winning the top honor.

“With the newly designed structure of the awards luncheon, we were given a platform to really dig into the work we do each day. We left the event with a new community of education supporters, and we have since begun working alongside organizations that we might never have connected with otherwise.”

With the 2025 awards celebration on the immediate horizon, Kelly Gregory, who directs WhatWorksSC, reflects on the meaningful impact of the awards and the future of the program.

“It is so heartening to hear from past winners and finalists the mid- and long-term effects that this statewide recognition has had on their programs. In naming these awards after Secretary Dick Riley and his late wife Tunky, our hope has always been that this recognition has the same kind of lasting impact on winning programs that the two of them had on public education in our state,” she says.

Gregory adds, “It’s my sincere hope that we will iterate and build on the WhatWorksSC program in ways that continue to drive the kinds of partnerships, evidence-based focus, and investments in quality initiatives that our past honorees have experienced.”