Who's running for Greenville County School Board in Area 18? Meet Becky McLaughlin and Ann Marie Middleton, the candidates on the ballot in the November 3, 2026 general election. Hear where they stand on the issues facing our schools, then share this episode with your neighbors before Election Day.
How the interviews worked:
All candidates received the same question at the time of their invitation to join us, and they were given 10 minutes for their interview. Candidates were allowed to bring along a companion, such as a campaign manager, family member, or friend, and to record our session themselves. There were no edits made to the interview.
Candidate links:
Resources:
Greenville County School Board Elections Overview
Catherine Schumacher:
Every two years, half of Greenville County Schools' Board of Trustees seats are on the ballot. When you go to the polls on November 3rd or in early voting, those of you living in the even-numbered school board areas will have the opportunity to cast your ballot in these critical, nonpartisan races to select the leaders who will help shape the future for one of our most important community assets, our public schools.
Here in Greenville, school board trustees play a critical leadership role. They develop and approve high-level policies, they approve the annual operating and capital budgets, and hold taxing authority to meet important priorities. They also oversee the hiring and evaluation of the district superintendent.
School board trustees help hold and trust our community's vision for schools that serve the vast majority of the school-aged children, a powerful responsibility.
Candidate Interview Guidelines and Area 18 Contest
Catherine Schumacher:
I'm Catherine Schumacher with Public Education Partners, and on this episode of Simple Civics Ed Talks, we are pleased to be part of the Simple Civics Greenville County commitment to candidate interviews for all of the contested seats on your ballot in November.
Here's how the interviews worked. All candidates received the same questions at the time of their invitation to join us, and they were given 10 minutes for their interview. Candidates were allowed to bring along a companion, such as a campaign manager, family member, or friend, and to record our session themselves. There were no edits made to the interview.
We've put links to the participating candidate's preferred internet presence on the episode page. Today, we feature interviews with your candidates for Area 18, Becky McLaughlin and Ann Marie Middleton. Area 18 generally includes Greer and surrounding areas.
Meet Becky McLaughlin: Greenville County School Board Area 18 Candidate
Catherine Schumacher:
First up, alphabetically, is Becky McLaughlin. Well, I'm pleased to be here with Becky McLaughlin, who is running for Greenville County Schools Board of Trustees in Area 18. Becky, thank you so much for joining us today.
Becky McLaughlin:
Oh, it's great to be here.
Catherine Schumacher:
Great. Why don't we start by telling us a little bit about yourself and why you are interested in serving on the school board.
Becky McLaughlin:
I will start by telling you I am a native West Virginian. I grew up in Central Florida in a small town, swimming in lakes and not surfing in the ocean. We had more orange groves than we had palm trees, but my dad moved us there when I was 10 years old, and I first came to Greenville as a Furman student many years ago, back when those trees were small.
I graduated, however, from Marshall University when my parents moved back to West Virginia, and you may know Marshall from the movie *We Are Marshall*. Our football team tragically crashed on landing in Huntington after a game at East Carolina, and my husband and I were both there during those years.
Speaking of my husband, we've been married for 52 years. We raised our kids in Palm Beach County, Florida, because he wanted to move to Florida and I was fine moving back. I taught math there. I coached an academic game, won state titles and national titles. I'm very competitive, and I don't have an athletic bone in my body, so I focused on academics.
When my husband's job brought us to Greenville, our kids were all in college in Tennessee. After college, they moved to Greenville because they loved the change of seasons and mountains and didn't want to go back to Florida. So we have eight grandsons and a bonus granddaughter all in Greenville, and they've all been in Greenville County schools.
Another connection is my daughter who teaches English at Blue Ridge High School. Of course, she wants nothing to do with math, since that's what mom did. I have a daughter-in-law who will earn her special ed degree and teach at JL Mann, where she's serving presently. So that's what brought us here.
When we got here, we wanted to be Carolinians, so we learned to shag dance, and we danced for years with Carolina Shag Club. Now our third grandson is a junior Shagger, and he competes nationally with the Carolina Shag Company, so we have that connection.
Summit Church is our church; we've been there for 18 years. Because I live just across the line in Spartanburg County, I've been active with a group called CAMP, which is Coffee and American Patriots, where we talk about local and state issues and make an effort to increase voter turnout.
When you retire from something that you have loved and you've given your heart to, you don't have time for a hobby. So why do I want to serve? Because I want to give back something that I know.
Catherine Schumacher:
What are the issues you believe are most important for school board members to focus on at this moment?
Becky McLaughlin:
I think school board members are not necessarily focused on those hot button issues that some of the public comments on often, things that we see on the news. But I've talked to board members and a few school administrators about their concerns, and they're basically focused on those annual issues that come up every year, like school safety and budget.
Some of the new items that they highlighted for me are things that I'm going to have to learn a lot about, number one being artificial intelligence, AI. It's a bear, and we're going to have to handle that as school board trustees. They also mentioned screen time, how much time the kids sit in front of a computer screen, and grading floor.
AI, I'll talk about that first because it's so new, and all of us have depended on AI probably in the last 24 hours. There are so many incredible issues, but we have to control it in an educational environment. We're not sure exactly how we're going to do that just yet.
Screen time requires a partnership with parents because parents are going to have to weigh in on this also. They're going to have to be restricting screen time at home so the kids aren't forming bad habits. We've had years of spending a lot of time on computers, starting with COVID, and we've got to break that habit and get the kids back to some paper and pencil activities.
Grading floor is something I'm really familiar with. When I was teaching the last five years, the homework lowest grade was 50 percent, so the kids could just not do it at all and get a 50 percent. Kids are smart, and they figure out exactly how much they can get away with.
I understand that the board has already addressed it for the coming year, but we need to get rid of that grading floor so that kids are accountable for what they do and for what they don't do.
Catherine Schumacher:
What are the critical experiences, qualities, and skills that you would bring to your service as a trustee?
Becky McLaughlin:
Basically, I bring decades of experience. More importantly, I bring recent experience. We hear so much about COVID and the years of lost progress for the kids. I can speak directly to that because I had to teach through a mask, and that's really difficult.
When you're an enthusiastic teacher and you have to take a breath and you've got a mask on, it's tough. But the kids were also sitting behind plexiglass, and I was teaching middle schoolers, so they found all kinds of games to do behind the plexiglass. I can speak to what I expected of those kids online when they weren't in class the year before we brought them back to class.
I want to prioritize excellence in academics. We hear so much about athletics. We see almost nightly a story about football, baseball, soccer, or something. We need to look back at issues from the 20th century and educational outcomes for today and prioritize academics.
Another thing that I think is influential in the way parents perceive education is the news. When schools make headlines in Portland or Chicago, there's little reason to believe that same thing is going on in Greenville, but it might be within a few years. We're not seeing student protests like we see oftentimes in those big cities.
One of my issues is teachers are being branded with the same accusations of indoctrination, and we need to give teaching as a profession a rebranding so that teachers are proud of their professions and parents are proud that their kids are in public school.
Because I'm a grandmother, and I've got lots of experience there, mostly with the boys, there are some common sense issues. I have no idea why we ever left cursive writing, but I know that my daughter, who is a high school English teacher, regularly has kids ask her to speak to the signature. "Write my signature for me, Ms. Morrill, because I'm going to go get a driver's license and I want to be able to sign it."
They're going to have to sign contracts. They're going to have to write thank you notes instead of print them. Those things are so important, and there are three years of kids that got none of it.
Also, because I taught GED at Lifelong Learning, there are some common sense things that kids can't do. They can't tell time from a clock that's hanging on the wall unless it's digital, and that just blew me away when I found that out. Also, they have no idea what controls daylight savings time; it's something that came out of the air and changed the time on their digital watch.
So there are a lot of issues that we need to talk about with kids, not just academically. But I will tell you: recess. Little kids need to go run in the morning, afternoon, play a game at lunch, but they need to run out some of that energy.
Career readiness needs to be a focus. One of the things that I studied long and hard was for 10 years after we came to Greenville, I was an entrepreneur and I had a brain training program, Learning Center. I developed a brain training program for seniors where we concentrated on speed and memory, and those are the very things that kids with ADD and ADHD are deficient in.
I think those are things that I will bring to the table.
Catherine Schumacher:
Great. Becky, thank you so much for being with us today and for your willingness to serve.
Meet Ann Marie Middleton: Greenville County School Board Area 18 Candidate
Next is Ann Marie Middleton. I'm happy to be joined today by Ann Marie Middleton, who is the incumbent school board trustee for Area 18. Ann Marie, thank you so much for being with us this morning.
Ann Marie Middleton:
Thank you so much.
Catherine Schumacher:
Please tell us a little bit about yourself and why you are interested in continuing to serve on the school board.
Ann Marie Middleton:
Thank you. I am running for re-election to a second term. I have enjoyed my time on the board and am deeply committed to Greenville County Schools.
My background is very broad. After college, I taught high school science in Massachusetts for five years. I also went back to school and became a registered nurse. In 1993, I was appointed as a special agent with the FBI.
While in the FBI, I met my husband in the FBI's field office in Milwaukee in 1984, who was also an agent at the time. We are blessed to have three daughters who all attended public schools and Clemson University. They are very successful in the medical field and now have families of their own.
Ultimately, I served my country in law enforcement for 24 years, and I have conducted investigations all over the country. In 2003, I was assigned to supervise operations for the FBI resident agency in Greenville, South Carolina. After 24 years with the FBI, I retired.
I continued to do some consulting work for the Bureau for several years. I was asked to teach science at J.L. Mann High School, which I did for a few years, and eventually re-retired.
In 2020, I was attending a monthly luncheon with fellow retired FBI agents, and Superintendent Royster was a speaker at that luncheon. He talked about Greenville County Schools and the role of the school board.
I was mesmerized, so interested, and I knew I wanted to be on the board. It never left my mind, and when an opening in my district came up two years later, I filed and was elected to the board in November of 2022.
Catherine Schumacher:
What are the issues you believe are most important for school board members to focus on at this moment?
Ann Marie Middleton:
Based on my FBI and law enforcement background, I am very attuned to safety and security threats to our schools. The district has included more Evolves, security personnel, and other security software to our budget, and I am pleased with that. But this is not a static problem. It could change, and I am alert for potential issues.
On an individual note, I initiated the purchase and installation of a solar-powered flashing pedestrian light at Moore Road, adjacent to Oakview Elementary School, when we were unable to replace our crossing guard at that location.
We have recently approved an AI policy to regulate students' use of AI platforms when in school. AI is obviously the wave of the future, but we must be careful. I want students to develop independent thinking and not rely on AI. AI is another area that is rapidly changing, and I believe we need to use AI smartly and judiciously.
In the same vein, the district proactively restricted cell phone use during classroom time, even before it was implemented as a statewide law in 2024. Despite this, I still have concerns with students using cell phones to take videos or photos of other students when not in class and using these for bullying. Bullying is and should be one of my main priorities.
Of equal importance, managing discipline issues in the classroom is critical to avoiding disruptive environments and aiding in effective learning. I have high academic expectations for our students, and it is so important to stay on top of discipline issues in our schools.
Lastly, I think we need to really focus on the basics, especially reading and writing. I am concerned that students have lost focus on the fundamentals, and I especially would like to see more creative writing. Technology literacy is so important, but not at the expense of actual literacy. There are so many more issues I could talk about, but those are my priorities.
Catherine Schumacher:
What are the critical experiences, qualities, and skills that you bring to your service as a trustee?
Ann Marie Middleton:
First and foremost, what I have learned from my experience of four years on the Greenville County School Board cannot be underestimated. I am very involved and get firsthand information from my principals, teachers, parents, and community, which I coordinate with my fellow board members to address issues and come up with solutions.
I have a wide background of public service, whether it be teaching, law enforcement, or nursing. I have been a leader in my career. I am a fierce advocate for my students and schools. I do my homework and I work hard. I show up for everything.
I am a good listener and I work well with others. I am mission-oriented. I get things done. I am confident, and I love what I do.
I am grateful for being elected to the school board, and I do not take that lightly. I think I am the most qualified person to be on the school board, not only from my extensive and varied background in public service, but most importantly, from my personal ideals and values.
Catherine Schumacher:
We do have a little bit more time. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our listeners?
Ann Marie Middleton:
Thank you for that. Just that I do have a website. I'm actually in the process of putting that up right now; it'll be Ann Marie for School Board. So if you'd like to look at that, that would be much appreciated.
I have a personal Facebook page where I share lots of pictures with my family and friends, and I also have a school board Facebook page, too. I think that's pretty much it.
Catherine Schumacher:
Thank you so much for being with us today and for your continued willingness to serve.
Ann Marie Middleton:
Okay. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Credits
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