Dr. Sheronda Witter serves as the Out-of-School Time Advisor in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Education. In this capacity, Dr. Witter helps to drive and coordinate the Department’s Engage Every Student Initiative, which is a bold call to action to provide high-quality out-of-school time learning opportunities for every child who wants to participate.
Previously, she served as the Director of the North Carolina Center for Afterschool Programs. Through this role, Dr. Witter provided visionary and strategic leadership of North Carolina’s State Afterschool Network to make North Carolina a place where all youth have access to high-quality learning opportunities beyond the school day that prepare them for success in education, career and life.
As a college student, Dr. Witter founded the Ladies of Distinction mentoring program for middle school girls, which ignited a passion within her for positive youth development and the necessity for access to out-of-school time learning opportunities for all youth. Following that trajectory, she dedicated the last 15 years of her career to serving youth in South and North Carolina through an array of roles in out-of-school time programs and youth serving organizations.
Dr. Witter has vast experience in program advocacy, evaluation and management, policy analysis, community and partner engagement, diversity, equity and inclusion and youth development. Furthermore, she brings a wealth of practical experience and education around afterschool and out-of-school time learning opportunities that can be used to advance and support the work of programs across the nation to ensure access for all the nation’s children.
Dr. Witter earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Intercultural Youth Development from Furman University, a Master of Science degree in Youth Development Leadership at Clemson University and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Educational Research and Policy Analysis for K-12 Education at North Carolina State University.