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Richland 1 outlines SummerSOAR 2025 framework after review of 2024 outcomes
Summary
District officials presented the SummerSOAR 2025 operational plan at the Jan. 28 board meeting, highlighting 2024 participation and service numbers and detailing dates, cluster sites, funding sources and partner organizations.
Richland School District One officials presented the SummerSOAR 2025 program framework to the board on Jan. 28, outlining dates, cluster sites, staffing and metrics from SummerSOAR 2024.
Chief of staff Doctor Cooper told the board the district will begin SummerSOAR 2025 the first week of June, operating Monday through Thursday for four weeks (June 2–5 start), pausing for the July Fourth week, then completing a fifth week with a limited set of preapproved programs in a sixth week. Elementary programming will be provided through seven elementary cluster hub sites; middle and high school programs will operate at their own campuses.
The presentation emphasized scale and services: officials said SummerSOAR 2024 served 18,179 students (pre-K through adult learners), sponsored 98 specialized programs across 22 host sites plus one off-site program at the Challenger Learning Center, deployed 17 nurses, provided 20,336 breakfasts, operated 96 school buses covering more than 80,000 miles and placed 37 foster-grandparent volunteers who logged about 3,600 hours. Cooper said the cluster-hub model reduces costs by consolidating 28 schools into seven hubs while preserving access.
Why it matters: district leaders framed SummerSOAR as part of an effort to reduce summer learning loss (“the summer slide”), provide meals and supervision for working families and connect students with mentors and community partners. Cooper told the board, “Since 20% of our students' waking time is spent in school during the regular school day, it's that other 80% that we must be acutely focused on and intentional.”
Funding and partners: officials said funding for specific camps comes from a mix of state funds, Title I and Title IV federal funds, IDEA (for some services), district general funds and carryover ESSER dollars. Presenters named partner organizations that support programming and training, including the Richland County Sheriff's Department, the National Summer Learning Association, the South Carolina After School Alliance and the South Carolina Department of Education.
Program types and outcomes: elementary offerings highlighted four core camps (including CERDP and a state-required third-grade Summer Reading Camp), preschool-quality CERDP, Young Einstein enrichment for high-performing 2nd–3rd graders and ESY services driven by individualized education plans. Secondary programs include middle-school retention/intervention and high-school credit recovery and acquisition; presenters said middle-school summer programming returned a roughly 90.6% promotion rate for invited middle-school students in 2024 and that about 755 high-school credits were awarded through credit-recovery work in 2024.
Next steps and communications: officials said a SummerSOAR brochure will be available to families before spring break and that communications teams will post program details on the district web site and social media. Board members asked for further disaggregated academic results (pre/post assessment data) and for program-level enrollment breakdowns; staff committed to provide those figures to the board.
Ending: district leaders asked the board to continue funding SummerSOAR and emphasized collaboration with facilities, transportation and safety staff to ensure sites are prepared and adequately staffed for the June launch.
