The SHINE Afterschool Program may have started off the 2015-16 school year a little rocky, but it is closing out the last few remaining months on a high note.

Rachel Strucko, director of the Lehigh Carbon Community College Carbon and Schuylkill SHINE Afterschool Program, announced that three Carbon elementary SHINE centers that were forced to keep their doors closed due to the state budget stalemate will reopen on Monday to again serve children in need of academic help. The reopening of the remaining three centers was due to a $1.2 million 21st Century Community Learning Centers funding stream secured by Congressman Lou Barletta through the federal government last month. The money will be distributed to the program over the next three years."Due to the budget crisis we were not able to open the L.B. Morris and Penn-Kidder elementary centers in Jim Thorpe and the Shull-David Center in Lehighton," Strucko said. "With the funding we received for Carbon and Schuylkill (through the 21st Century grant) that money will help support those centers reopening.""The SHINE program has been proven to help kids by giving them better alternatives to joining gangs and getting into trouble and it gets parents, families and the community involved in education," Barletta said. "When I saw the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program was on the chopping block in Congress, I was proud to step in and preserve it so that our children will have better chances for brighter futures."Expanding servicesIn addition to reopening centers that were closed this school year, Strucko said that funds will be used to expand services in the centers that were able to open for the school year. These SHINE centers include Panther Valley, Shenandoah Valley, Mahanoy Area on the first through fourth grade levels; a home visiting program for PV, Shenandoah and Mahanoy; and the Carbon County CCTI Career Academy, which serves fifth through eighth graders from all five Carbon County school districts.SHINE will add an additional 15 to 20 elementary students at the Panther Valley, Shenandoah and Mahanoy Area centers; hire an additional three home visitors, bringing the total number of families served through the home visiting program to 26 in those three districts, and hire a total of three home visitors to serve 39 families in the Jim Thorpe and Lehighton districts.More centersOver the last 11 years, seven centers have served hundreds of Carbon and Schuylkill elementary and middle school children, but Strucko said that there are gaps that she plans to work to fill.One of those gaps is the lack of an elementary SHINE center in Palmerton.Strucko said that by mid-February, one elementary SHINE center will be opening in the Palmerton Area School District as part of the 21st Century grant funding.The center, located in the Parkside Elementary School, will serve 30 kindergarten through second grade students."Palmerton has always been a huge supporter of SHINE," she said. "We're now at the point with funding where we can finally expand into one center there. (After the center opens) we will serve all school districts in Carbon County in some capacity."Palmerton Area School District Superintendent Scot Engler said that the district is "extremely excited" about the center. If the program is a success in Parkside, officials are hoping to open a second center at the S.S. Palmer Elementary School next year."As a district, we are tremendously thankful for all of Rachel Strucko's efforts in helping bring this wonderful opportunity to our students and their families," Engler said.SHINE offers high school students the opportunity to volunteer at centers, but doesn't provide academic help to these students. By mid-February, Strucko said the SHINE model will expand into one high school center in Shenandoah.The site was identified as the perfect starting point due to extremely high parental involvement, an 80 percent retention rate in 30-day attendees on the elementary level and the administration. It will serve 30 tenth through 12th grade students and will help prepare these students for college."We're going to attack academics but also do career focus, college prep, resiliency training," Strucko said. Students will receive approximately 20 weeks in the program this school year and about 16 next school year through the pilot program. "We're really excited to see what the model will look like on the high school level. We really think it's going to be something exciting for the future of SHINE."To accomplish this, the program is currently hiring two SHINE teachers, two interns and a STEM coach.High school students in Carbon County may also see the model implemented down the road, Strucko added.Expanding countiesThe SHINE program model has received recognition on the national levels as a quality educational afterschool program that benefits not only the students and teachers, but the families as a whole.Area legislators, including Barletta, state Sens. John Yudichak and David Argall, state Rep. Doyle Heffley and the county commissioners, as well as the late state Sen. James Rhoades, have seen the benefits and have supported the program through securing funds and expansion of the program into a third county.Former director Jeanne Miller, who was a driving force behind the implementation of the SHINE program in Carbon and Schuylkill, has been working with Yudichak, Barletta and Wilkes University officials to get the Luzerne County SHINE Afterschool Program up and running.To date, four centers are open in the county, with an additional three centers slated to open in the near future."It's really amazing that Carbon County is getting replicated," Strucko said. "There are very few counties like Carbon County right now. We're on the cutting edge of education in the STEM and STEAM areas."With the nine centers in Carbon and Schuylkill and the seven in Luzerne, that will be 16 centers serving nearly 2,000 children in three counties."