COLUMBIA – Five South Carolina School Improvement Councils (SICs) have been named statewide award finalists for their accomplishments in parent and civic engagement.
The S.C. School Improvement Council’s annual Dick and Tunky Riley Award for School Improvement Council Excellence was created in 2002 to recognize the significant contributions made to public education by the 14,000-plus local SIC members who volunteer in the state’s 1,100-plus K-12 public schools.
In alphabetical order, this year’s Riley Award finalists are:
Baron DeKalb Elementary SIC, Camden (Kershaw County School District)
Blythe Academy of Languages SIC, Greenville (Greenville County Schools)
Burton-Pack Elementary SIC, Columbia (Richland School District 1)
Jennie Moore Elementary SIC, Mount Pleasant (Charleston County School District)
Port Royal Elementary SIC, Port Royal (Beaufort County School District)
“These five School Improvement Councils are to be commended for the outstanding and very important work they have done for their schools and students,” said SC-SIC Board of Trustees Chairman Sylleste Davis. “Their efforts demonstrate the real value of bringing parents, educators and community members together to share ideas, strategies and resources for the benefit of our state’s children and their futures.”
In the past year, SIC members across South Carolina have turned in over 231,000 volunteer hours in their local schools at an estimated value of more than $3.8 million – a substantial return on the state’s current SC-SIC budget allocation of just over $200 per school per year.
The winner of the 2012 Riley Award will be selected from this year’s finalists and announced at the SC-SIC Annual Meeting, Saturday, March 24, 2012, in Columbia.
The SC-SIC Riley Award is named in honor of former South Carolina Governor and U.S. Education Secretary Richard Riley and his late wife, Tunky, and recognizes the couple’s longstanding commitment to quality public education.
Located in the University of South Carolina’s College of Education, the S.C. School Improvement Council was established in state law more than three decades ago to provide the member training, technical assistance, statutory accountability, and other operational resources necessary for the continued success of the community-based SICs in each of the state’s K-12 public schools.