Like Father, Like Son

Profile

Shortly after Richard Riley returned home to Greenville, S.C., last year after a series of education policy meetings in Washington, D.C., he sat in on a presentation by Greenville County Schools Superintendent W. Burke Royster. Riley, a former South Carolina governor and U.S. secretary of education, was impressed.

“You would have thought he led the group up in Washington,” he says. “I was coming back to Greenville to talk to them about what is really important, what we should be focusing on, and they were doing it already. It was really amazing.”

Riley, 84, takes the long view. The Greenville native knew Royster’s father, William, a superintendent in nearby Anderson, S.C. He sees similarities between the father, who died in 2008, and the son in their “thoughtful and scholarly” approach.

“I admire Burke Royster a great deal,” he says. “He’s a strong school leader, as strong as any I’ve ever met or worked with.”

Royster, 59, has led the district since 2012. With 77,000 students, it is by far the largest district in South Carolina, and the 44th largest in the nation. Riley’s recommendation, among others, helped Royster gain the 2018 South Carolina Superintendent of the Year award, which spans the 2017-18 fiscal year.

Riley considers Royster’s signature achievement to be Graduation Plus, an initiative whose goal is not only to have every student graduate, but to have every student graduate with either college credits or certification in nursing, an industry trade or some other employment field.

“We want to show you’re college- and career-ready not from some scores on a test but the fact that you’ve actually done it,” Royster says.

Another initiative, OnTrack Greenville, aims to keep struggling students on a path to graduation. OnTrack, created with the United Way, other organizations and businesses and a federal Social Innovation Fund grant, serves three middle schools and an Early College school in the low-income Highway 25 corridor.

Focusing grades 5 through 7 is key to keeping children engaged in school, Royster says.

“Statistically, students drop out of school when they reach the age they can leave,” he says. “But they mentally drop out between the 5th and 7th grade. ... They need to see, to a greater degree, a connection to what they’re doing and how it helps them.”

Students who are most at risk are identified by software that tracks attendance, discipline and grades. They are referred to teams of teachers, counselors and others who as-sign them to the program or organization that can help them most.

Pat Dillard, a retired superintendent who consults for the district, says OnTrack illustrates Royster’s greatest strength — his ability to get everyone working together.

“He tries very hard to be sure that everyone understands that he knows that he can’t do this alone,” she says.

Others say Royster is often the smartest person in the room, with razor-sharp recall. He laughs off that compliment. “That’s when I remember something they don’t want me to remember,” he says.

Royster began learning about education early, listening to discussions of school issues at the dinner table. In high school and college, he worked in the maintenance department of his father’s district.

He has spent his entire career in his home state, with little urge to wander.

“Sometimes the looking around has to do with whether you have a level of satisfaction or not,” he says. “And I’ve had a level of satisfaction in each job that I’ve had.”