Prior Years
Our track record
Leaders 4SC has run rigorous, hands-on civics programs since 2013 — in Boston, online through the pandemic, and in New York — and the curriculum has been rebuilt and sharpened with every summer since. The best way to understand the program is to look at what students have made here.
What students have made
Published op-eds
Students have written and published persuasive articles on the issues they care about — from youth representation in government to children's rights — giving middle schoolers something rare: a real byline and a public argument with their name on it.
Delivered speeches
Students have researched, written, and delivered persuasive speeches to their peers on everything from social media to school policy — many of them speaking in front of an audience for the first time.
Task Force solutions
Working as budget offices, school boards, Supreme Court justices, and city commissions, students have designed real solutions to real problems: balancing a federal budget, reforming a justice system, combating child labor in an assigned country, and more.
Leaders Conference proposals
In the capstone summit, student teams representing government, nonprofits, and the private sector have negotiated joint solutions to shared problems — including, in 2020, a student team tackling “What can we do to make AI safe for everyone?” years before AI safety was a household topic.
A quick history
Priten and Chandani Shah found the organization now known as Academy 4 Social Civics, to give students of all ages real opportunities for civic engagement.
The first Leaders summer workshop runs in Boston.
The workshop moves fully online so students can keep learning through the pandemic — and reaches students well beyond Boston for the first time.
Three summers in New York: multi-week programs spanning writing- and speaking-focused weeks, each capped by a Leaders Conference.
Two years spent rebuilding the curriculum from the ground up and moving the program home to Boston.
The three-week in-person program debuts at Lesley University in Cambridge: Writing (Op-Eds), Speaking (Speech to School), and Social Innovation (AI Pitch Project).
Three weeks, reordered to lead with speaking, with all-new topics: Speak Up, Make the Case, Build What's Next.
Topics we've explored
Dozens of issues over the years
Rights of children · global education systems · child labor · special-needs education · immigration · healthcare access · economic inequality · representation in government · homelessness & affordable housing · renewable energy · refugee crises · press freedom & misinformation · struggling democracies · gender equality · animal rights · space exploration · designer babies & gene editing · self-driving cars · the future of work · green cities · social media · school types · freedom of speech — and many more.
A deliberate promise
We never repeat topics two years in a row
Come back next summer and the issues are new. Alumni build range across topics year over year, never sitting through the same material twice — which is exactly why so many students do multiple summers and join Task Force Saturdays in between.
See this year's program.
Explore the Summer 2027 curriculum, or apply to reserve a seat — registrations completed by April 1 get 10% off.