COLUMBIA – The School Improvement Councils (SICs) of 12 South Carolina public schools have been named to the S.C. School Improvement Council’s (SC-SIC) 2011 Honor Roll for their significant efforts to foster civic engagement in public education.

These Honor Roll SICs will continue in the running for the SC-SIC’s annual Dick and Tunky Riley School Improvement Award. Named for the former U.S. Secretary of Education and South Carolina Governor and his late wife, the Riley School Improvement Award was created in 2002 to recognize the vital contributions made by the 15,000-plus local School Improvement Council members who volunteer in every public school in the state.

In alphabetical order, the 12 SC-SIC Honor Roll recipients for 2011 are:

• Baron DeKalb Elementary School (Kershaw County School District)

• Brennen Elementary School (Richland School District 1)

• Burgess Elementary School (Horry County Schools)

• Doby’s Mill Elementary School (Kershaw County School District)

• Greenbrier Elementary School (Greenville County Schools)

• Homewood Elementary School (Horry County Schools)

• Jesse Boyd Elementary School (Spartanburg County School District 7)

• Lakewood High School (Sumter County School District 2)

• Midway Elementary School (Lexington School District 1)

• Monarch Elementary School (Union County School District)

• North Augusta Elementary School (Aiken County School District)

• Sullivan Middle School (Rock Hill School District 3)

“It’s with great pleasure and appreciation that we honor these School Improvement Councils for their outstanding work in building parent and community commitment in their local schools,” said SC-SIC Board of Trustees Chairman Carlos Primus. “In today’s climate of drastically limited revenue and tightened budgets, the many contributions made by South Carolina’s SICs are even more essential. We must recognize and support them for the very real value they bring to our local schools, our children and the future of our state.”

In the last year, local School Improvement Council members across South Carolina turned in well over 250,000 volunteer hours in their schools at an estimated value of over $4 million – a significant return on the state’s current annual SC-SIC budget allocation of about $220 per school.

Five finalists from this year’s list of Honor Roll schools will be selected late next month, with one to be named as the winner of the annual Riley School Improvement Award. The award will be announced at the SC-SIC Annual Conference, March 19, 2011, in Columbia.