In education news this week, Jefferson County Public Schools opened a new afterschool center to help close academic achievement gaps.

The Elevate Learning Center in the Newburgh neighborhood is the second location for the Elevate program.

JCPenney has partnered with the Boys and Girls Club to provide a space for students and their families to receive additional support.

More and Our Education Matters report.

And our idea was really how are we going to get kids who missed a lot of instructional time during COVID as a result of being out of school and being on nontraditional instruction?

How are we going to get them extra time in front of teachers?

So, yes, they're going to be in school all day, every day, but we need to get them additional time.

And so that was the real philosophy behind this concept.

Our motto is amazing.

It is elevate your mom possibilities and potential.

And that basically summarizes what Elevate is all about.

We are working to address the systemic barriers that our students encounter.

And so we are making sure that our students have fair access to supports that they need so that they can succeed.

For students to attend Elevate, there is a criteria.

They have to live in the demographic area.

They're missing ten or more instructional days.

They're not meeting their reading or math benchmarks and they're not passing three or more core content areas.

And so we're working with those student to get them where they need to be.

This is a shining example of how major youth serving organization in the school district come together and make intentional and strategic investment in the humanity and the potential of young people in this community.

And I'm proud of that.

My Naomi get a lot of my work done and catch up on some of my mission work and some of my classes and improving a lot of my stuff in school and learn new things.

I work from a single parent and so it provides him an opportunity for education that I can't provide for him due to my busy schedule.

It's a safe place for him to come after school that I know I don't have to worry about him.

So I want to be clear on this.

There's no magic formula.

No magic does to eliminate the achievement gap, to get kids caught up, to get kids furthering their learning.

Other than making sure that we have quality resources for kids in our school, we get them in school every single day.

And then we extend that learning, whether it be after school with Elevate, whether it be with our backpack league in the summertime, kids have to have extra time.

It's all about the amount of time they have in front of an experienced, licensed educator with quality resources.

Superintendent Marty Polio says the programs are funded through COVID emergency relief money that has been exhausted.

He says if JCP wants to keep Elevate program going, the school board will have to fund it from the general fund.