Lucia Rilling, wife of Norwalk’s Mayor Harry Rilling, has joined Norwalk ACTS’ TEAM Summer as it’s Summer Learning Advocate. Lucia will be helping providers across the city raise awareness about the importance of Summer Learning for all children and youth, and working with the team to grow our city’s capacity to serve more children, better.
There are 20 to 25 providers of summer learning in Norwalk, serving roughly 3,500 of the 14,000 Norwalk children ages 3-18, according to Norwalk ACTS, a membership organization with more than 100 educators, and civic, business and community leaders working to improving the lives of all Norwalk children. Norwalk ACTS has begun a multi-year initiative to engage more children in quality programming during the summer months.
“We know that more than half of the achievement gap between lower- and higher-income youth can be attributed to unequal access to summer opportunities,” says Anthony Allison, Executive Director of Norwalk ACTS. “Engaging students in high-quality summer academic and enrichment programs has the potential to stop this disproportionate and cumulative summer loss and to propel all students to higher achievement.”