Our Mission
…And History
Big Learning’s nonprofit mission is to enrich the education of pre-K through middle school students in the fields of STEM and World Languages while
providing the skills and personal competencies to succeed in the 21st century: its focus is on serving students
whose access to enrichment programs is impacted by poverty and other factors.
Our standards for value: We offer programs that offer children immediate educational benefit and enjoyment, while building powerful knowledge, skills, and character traits for a lifetime. Our programs expand children’s horizons, and build excitement about learning and a thirst for understanding.
Our commitment to equity: We strive to make our programs available and to provide value to children and youth across the income spectrum, and to improve equitable access to enrichment.
Big Learning, formerly EPI was born in 1975 as a result of Montgomery County Council of PTAs commitment to quality, affordable afterschool programs. MCCPTA volunteers, who had been spending as much as 100 hours per month running FLES, which was started in 1954, and Group Piano, realized that this level of volunteer effort was unsustainable. They spun off MCCPTA Educational Programs, Inc. (EPI), as a new nonprofit created to administer afterschool programs in Montgomery County.
Over the years, Big Learning has housed FLES, Hands On Science, and Creative Enrichment, a kindergarten complement program that ended with the introduction of all-day kindergarten for MCPS students. As Big Learning grew, the volunteer board of directors realized that they needed a full-time executive director to run Big Learning. In 2011, Big Learning Inc., then a separate nonprofit, joined MCCPTA EPI as a new program and EPI began doing business under the name Big Learning. Its founder, Dr. Karen Cole, became Big Learning’s first executive director.