[EdTalks] Finding the "Spark": Meet Teacher of the Year Morgan Smith

What does it take to become the Greenville County Schools Teacher of the Year? In this episode, we sit down with the 2025-26 honoree, Morgan Smith, a fifth-grade teacher at Robert E. Cashion Elementary. In a refreshingly honest conversation, Morgan shares the full story behind her journey - from her family's 50-year legacy within the district to a period of intense burnout that nearly caused her to leave the profession altogether. This interview explores the hidden challenges facing educators today and the powerful solutions that can reignite their passion.

This detailed discussion with the Greenville County Schools Teacher of the Year, Morgan Smith, offers a rare look into the heart of modern education. Morgan opens up about her unique family history, being a third-generation Greenville County Schools employee, and how seeing her father work as a plant engineer and her grandmother as an administrator shaped her understanding of the importance of school support staff. A central theme of our conversation is the critical issue of teacher burnout. Morgan shares her personal struggle and introduces the powerful teacher burnout strategies she developed, culminating in "Spark," an initiative designed for building positive school culture and improving teacher retention. She explains how peer-to-peer connection and support pulled her back from the brink and inspired her to help others find their "why."

Furthermore, Morgan provides invaluable insight into her innovative fifth-grade teaching strategies. She details how she prepares her students for the major transition to middle school by focusing on student self-advocacy, empowering them to become their own biggest cheerleaders. We also explore her creative use of "classroom transformations" - turning her room into everything from a jungle for a "Survivor" challenge to a wedding reception - to create core memories, expose students to new careers, and make learning undeniably relevant. This conversation is a testament to the fact that supporting our teachers is the most crucial factor in student success.

Introduction

Catherine Schumacher: Being chosen as Greenville County Schools District Teacher of the Year is among the highest honors a local educator can receive. What does this year's winner, a third-generation Greenville County Schools employee, have to say about her role and why it has been such a special opportunity to impact her colleagues and her students? I'm Catherine Schumacher of Public Education Partners, and on today's episode of Simple Civics: EdTalks, we meet Morgan Smith, this year's Greenville County Schools Teacher of the Year and a fifth-grade teacher at Robert E. Cashion Elementary School. Well, I am very excited to be here with Morgan Smith, who is the 2025-26 Greenville County Schools Teacher of the Year. Morgan, welcome to Simple Civics: EdTalks. We're glad you're here.

Morgan Smith: Thank you so much. What an honor it is to be here.

Catherine Schumacher: Well, great. It's so fun. I've decided that we are going to interview the Teacher of the Year every year on this podcast because we were just chatting before we started. And every teacher's journey to this honor is very different. And I think one of the great things is to hear about that pathway. So for you particularly, it's got a special backstory. So you come from a long line of folks who've been a part of Greenville County Schools. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey to the classroom and how your fabulous family influenced you?

A Family Legacy in Greenville County Schools

Morgan Smith: This is a story that's near and dear to my heart. I love talking about this. Throughout the Teacher of the Year process, there were several interviews where I got to brag on the people that I love, which is what education is about in my mind. Going back to how I started in education and what shaped me in that sense was my family. So my grandmother and my father were both longtime employees of Greenville County Schools. My grandmother being an administrator and a teacher for 40 years. And then my dad was a plant engineer at two different schools for 10 years. So you're talking about a combined 50 years of experience.

Morgan Smith: And then my mom is a child life specialist in the hospital. So she's an educator, but in the hospital teaching kids what procedures are going down and whatnot. So as far as a foundation in education, I had a pretty solid one. But role model wise, I was able to see from the school perspective that it takes so much more to run a school than just your teacher or just your principal.

Morgan Smith: So coming into the school, my students' and lots of students' perspectives and maybe even some parents' perspectives are, we're interacting with our teacher and that's who we've got. And from my perspective, just even growing up, we've got a team of people that we need to make this work. And we're talking about family, but the school was my family. When I went to school, the front office, the nurse, the other custodians, my grandmother's co-workers, they were all our family. We had my dad's coworkers coming to our Thanksgivings, and I was going up there in the summer. And so I was able to see how much effort and love was put into everything. And so I feel like that really shaped who I was as a teacher.

Morgan Smith: And I'm very similar to lots of teachers in education where we knew from an early age we wanted to be a teacher.

Catherine Schumacher: Yeah, you have that teacher heart.

Morgan Smith: Yes, playing dolls, giving them grades and everything as a kid. So I knew. But then I also had, as a child, love and high expectations. And I pull that into my classroom every day. I feel like that's my foundation. When you go back to what you learn in college and your teaching philosophy, that's what I base everything on is love and high expectations. And in my opinion, you don't have one without the other.

Morgan Smith: In my childhood, I was shown love and high expectations. I was so privileged to have the opportunity that my mom homeschooled me after sixth grade. So I got to experience Greenville County Schools through the sixth grade, but then was able to finish high school and college in a combined six years. So I was able to be in the classroom by 19.

Catherine Schumacher: Wow.

Morgan Smith: I didn't know that. It's really cool. It happened to be in that year of COVID where I was hired. They needed someone to help. And it started as an online monitoring thing and turned into a co-teaching position. And so I was able to teach fifth grade as a 19-year-old. And they'd ask me about my age and I'd be, "I'm old enough to be here. I've got the degree." But that love and high expectations got me there.

Morgan Smith: So when kids are coming through my door, they get the same treatment that I had because that's what got me where I wanted to be. And so I want them to know that for me, they have that, even if they're coming through my door and they don't have it from anywhere else. For me, they have it and they have it once they leave, too. I've got students checking in with me now, middle schoolers asking me how I'm doing, telling me about their middle school life, if I can help them with that, so they know once they leave my classroom that they've received that and that's helping them in the future.

Catherine Schumacher: That's so amazing. I love the idea of the relationships and that idea of the school family, because that's a great point. Even when we talk about school funding, sometimes people forget how much is outside of that classroom and how critical the plant engineers are, how critical the lunchroom, the cafeteria staff is and all of those support staff, they are absolutely essential to student success as well. I just love that part of your story and the idea of you just always being in the school.

The Role and Perspective of the Teacher of the Year

Catherine Schumacher: Obviously, this is a huge honor. Teacher of the Year, it's a process. It's a long process. It's very rigorous, especially for a big district like Greenville County Schools, where we've got 6,000 teachers. It carries a lot of responsibility. So you've been in this role now for a couple of months. What have you enjoyed most about the opportunity so far?

Morgan Smith: So it is absolutely a huge honor. And it's been such a cool journey to go through to be able to see different aspects of the district. I feel like what I've enjoyed most is being able to interact with people that I would never have been able to interact with in my position. I feel like I've had a lot of discussions lately about the lens that it gives me into the district, being able to see what we're able to do as a huge district.

Morgan Smith: Because as a teacher, I get the most magnified version of what's happening. I'm getting a one-student version, one parent, we're all meeting together in the same room. That's as small as you can get in this district. But now being able to go and meet with people at the district level and see what these are, the processes that are happening, being able to attend board meetings and know how these decisions are made. I feel like it gives me just a great insight into what we're doing.

Morgan Smith: I'm really proud of what we're doing in our school, but then being able to see the cool numbers with the state of the district right now, that is, it almost makes me more proud and grateful to work in Greenville County Schools because I have worked in another district and I just know that nothing compares. I grew up in this district, I got to teach in another district coming straight out of college. And the second that that year was up, I came right back.

Catherine Schumacher: Yeah, I think that's an important note too. We don't want people to take for granted all the incredible things that we have here in Greenville County Schools. Obviously, we know there are always opportunities to do more, do better, address challenges, explore opportunities. But I think hearing the enthusiasm with which you're approaching this opportunity to see other stuff, especially you are an elementary school teacher, and it's that long pathway, that long graduation plus pathway. And so all of that is really interesting.

From Burnout to "Spark": A Platform for Teacher Retention

Catherine Schumacher: So as you've been having these conversations and going to things like the state of the district meetings and all of that, is there an issue or theme that is really important to you that you're kind of weaving into your service? And I know you have to talk a lot in public. How did you come to that? And what would you want to tell the community about that particular theme or issue?

Morgan Smith: So I've had a lot of time to think about this issue just because we started talking about this at the beginning of the Teacher of the Year selection process. They have you write several essays on topics. And one of them was, is there a trend or an issue you want to speak about? And I feel like we're all online. We're seeing buzzworthy topics. I feel like at the beginning of the year, I saw a lot of school supplies, a lot of things like that, and I like to focus on a lot of student issues.

Morgan Smith: But I feel like me personally, when I thought of what do I want to represent? If this is a brand, what am I trying to help and push for and advocate for? And I settled on teacher burnout. The thing that I connect with about that the most is that to me means that teachers are losing their spark for education. Somehow we've got those first-year teachers that come in and they're bright-eyed and they're really excited to start their first classroom. And over time, sometimes we see that they're losing connection. And I don't think that that means they don't love their job. I think that that means that they are losing why they're doing their job.

Catherine Schumacher: They're forgetting their why.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, they want to be connected. And that's a buzzworthy topic, too. Remember your why.

Catherine Schumacher: Yeah.

Morgan Smith: But at its core, I feel like some of that has truth to it. And I feel like for some people that's sensitive, but I feel like it has truth to it. And so I personally experienced that. And here I am sitting as District Teacher of the Year.

Catherine Schumacher: So how did you get over it?

Morgan Smith: So I connected with the people in my building. So I work after school. I'm at school about 12 hours a day. And me and my coworker that were working after school, we were just talking about it. And she was reminding me why I do what I do. Every day we would talk through it and we would come to a solution. And then the next day I would try it and it would be, OK, well, maybe I could try something else. Maybe it wasn't that, but I'll try something else. And so it got to a point where I realized that the connection that I had with that person was what was pulling me back. And obviously my connection with my students, and you would have fun things happen there too, and so that relationship in my building with another teacher pulled me back.

Morgan Smith: Once I was able to speak with her about that and I was able to kind of get that feeling back, that why, that's what I wanted to do for other people. And so we created something in my building called Spark. And that's that play on words of teachers are losing their spark. We don't want them to do that. And it's almost an underground network in my building of teachers that are on a mission to do this for others.

Morgan Smith: So we pulled our most positive people together in our building. And here I am, two years ago, feeling really burnt out. What am I supposed to do in this career? Maybe this isn't for me. And two years later, I've had those connections in the building. They pulled me back. And now I'm able to do that for others. And so we're doing things like creating outside socials, writing sticky notes on doors, surprising teachers with things, even if it's just a message of, "Hey, I heard that so-and-so is going through this. Can somebody pick them up a coffee tomorrow?"

Morgan Smith: It's a team of people that are working to build that culture in a school because that's what we need to hold our teachers. A lot of what we talk about in the conversations we've had in district meetings, with the state of the district and everything, I think the board and Dr. Burke Royster and the Greenville County Schools as a district, they see teachers as really important. And again, with that lens, I'm able to see that we're valuing our teachers, they know that teachers are the primary stakeholders.

Catherine Schumacher: The most important factor.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, student success, yes, absolutely. So knowing that, being able to see that, I'm able to invest in my building one-on-one in these teachers. I want to keep these teachers, first-year teachers that come into my building and they're bright and they're wanting to put things in, and my 10-year teachers in my building that are bright and putting things in. But sometimes we're all having a hard day, so if we can work together in my building to support our teachers and just bring that spark back just a little bit, then hopefully we can prevent that. Because sometimes teachers just know what's going on in the next classroom before admin does. And again with that lens, admin has other things going on too. So if it's me having that conversation with that teacher or building that relationship, just as we build relationships with students, then I can help support that.

Morgan Smith: So teacher burnout is huge for me because I literally went through it and here I am. So if I can help another teacher with what I'm doing or what I'm saying or whatever it is, I want to do that.

Catherine Schumacher: That's so great. Well, and it goes back to that family metaphor. Your other teachers are your siblings.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, for real.

Catherine Schumacher: The administration's your parents, and I might take that too far, but do you know what I mean? And I think that's really, really powerful because the relationships that you have in the building are so, so critical. And obviously, Public Education Partners, championing teachers, that's the first pillar of our work. And so we know how important that is and how important it is to support teachers.

Fifth-Grade Strategies: Fostering Self-Advocacy for Middle School

Catherine Schumacher: And of course, the purpose of having strong teachers is to have great student outcomes. And so you teach fifth grade. So we're going to dive into fifth grade a little bit because fifth graders crack me up. It's such an important year, it's the capstone of that first phase of their learning journey. And you have to get them ready for that big leap. And at a school, sometimes they'll stay, we have a few K-8 schools in Greenville County, but most of them, they're going to a different school. And even if they're not, the work is different, it looks different, the day is different. What are a couple of things that you do differently from maybe a second-grade teacher to get those kiddos ready to go into middle school?

Morgan Smith: Yeah, so we start that from day one. I really focus and I feel like as a grade level, just in my school, we really focus on self-advocacy and relationships. Those two work hand at hand, just as we talked about high expectations and love. So the biggest thing when they leave me is I'm their biggest advocate within my four walls. And I can say, hey, I know that you need this or I can see that you need that or whatnot.

Morgan Smith: But then when they leave and they're one of a ton of children that are brand new to six or seven different teachers, they need to be able to advocate for themselves. They have to then turn into their biggest cheerleader, and not to say that we don't have people at home advocating for us as well or other teachers advocating for us. But teachers can't read our minds and sometimes they struggle with that too, going from the four walls of our elementary school classroom where it's very easy to read 20 or 25 faces versus several classes of that.

Morgan Smith: So working on those self-advocacy skills and also getting to know that we care about them on such a deep level. I really work hard to get to know my students. I'm going to sports games. I'm seeing them at their performances. I'm getting to know them on a deeper level. Even students that aren't in my classroom, I'm getting to know them on a deeper level. So they know they matter.

Morgan Smith: My first year teaching, I did something called Fantastic Phone Call Friday, which my teachers listening are going to just be holding onto the edge of their chair right now, but I called every single parent every single Friday my first year teaching because I wanted them to know that, whether I was calling, it could be good, it could be bad. I just want to give you some news. I'm trying to connect with you. And that has slowly turned into a fantastic Friday memo.

Catherine Schumacher: Yeah, I was going to say, that's a lot of work.

Morgan Smith: It was a lot of work. It was a lot of work. But it slowly turned into the Friday facts that I email out. But again, that's that connection. Any information that I can provide to you, I want to give you. So you know, well, we were receiving this in elementary school. So moving forward, maybe I want to ask about this or maybe I want to know what resources are out there because this was so given to me that maybe when I move forward, I need to know to ask.

Catherine Schumacher: And to be proactive about it.

Morgan Smith: Absolutely. And that's so important for them moving forward.

Creating Core Memories Through Classroom Transformations

Catherine Schumacher: Yeah. No, that's a great, that's a great note. I think thinking about that shift and how do students learn how to find their own voice over that whole journey. And that continues all the way through high school. Speaking of voices, again, with fifth graders. So I feel like fifth grade is a great "kids say the craziest things" kind of phase of youth development. So I think it would be really fun for you to share just a couple of moments of joy from your classroom. Maybe when things didn't go quite the way that you thought they would or just some core memory moments that you've been blessed to work with on your students.

Morgan Smith: As teachers, we spend a lot of time with our students. We're with them a lot of times. So we see a lot of different versions of your students, especially in fifth grade, we're seeing them develop over time. Also, we have a lot of in-class comedians who have a lot of funny moments. But when I think about core memories for kids, it goes back to one of the favorite things that I do in my classroom is transformations. So what that means for people that maybe don't know is I turn my classroom into a completely different environment. It doesn't look like a classroom. It looks like a jungle or a surgical table or a coffee shop. And so it applies to what they're learning and going back to making learning relevant, building those relationships with them, making core memories of education. They go back and they remember those things.

Morgan Smith: This goes back to around the time of my wedding and I was planning my wedding and my students were, "Can we come to your wedding? Can we be a flower girls? What does the wedding dress look like?" Lots of questions that whole year. And so we go the whole school year and I'm getting married in June. And I know that I want to do something with them because my wedding is far away. I can't bus 25 kids there. But I wanted to make a memory for them and also capitalize on the fact that you're so invested in this. We want to make this learning relevant. And so I took the opportunity to have my wedding coordinator, my photographer come into the classroom and to speak with them. They planned an event, they ordered a wedding cake online and we went to pick it up.

Catherine Schumacher: This is like career development, this is like graduation plus in action.

Morgan Smith: It was so cool. And when we talk about elementary school and with that lens of the district, it is hard sometimes to see where they're going, but that's where it starts. It's knowing what careers are out there, what's going on. And so, to go back to that funny moment or the core memory, we eventually got to this place where they were finishing the sentence so that I could put these things around my wedding and let people know that were coming to my wedding that my kids were a part of it and they were really excited to be a part of it too.

Morgan Smith: And we turned into some funny sentences. So we got some sentences like, "A good husband always agrees with her, even if she's wrong." Or we got, "A kind wife always helps around the house like clean and cook. Meanwhile, the husband is working." So we got some retro...

Catherine Schumacher: Some kind of retro approaches there. That's so funny.

Morgan Smith: Yeah, it's just some interesting takes, but being able to see they were so invested in that moment. And when we talk about learning, we were doing addition and subtraction of decimals at the time. So we're planning an event, we're spending money, we're managing a budget, and then also exposing them to careers. And then when you're talking about things that maybe didn't go right, also, we didn't have air conditioning that day. So we took the photography outside. But I had kids write about it later being able to hold a camera and then they moved to middle school and they want to take a photography class. So it definitely had an impact. But creating those core memories through transformations is my favorite thing. It's just I love to do it.

Catherine Schumacher: Do you have one? What have you done? Have you done one so far this year or is it coming up?

Morgan Smith: So this year we participated in Rock Your School Week, which is a nationwide classroom transformation project. And we did Survivor. So very cool, challenge-based things. But it was a jungle.

Catherine Schumacher: Like team-based, project-based, all of those skills, all those executive skills that are going to be really important when they get into middle school.

Morgan Smith: Right. Relationship managing?

A Teacher's Pledge to Students and Parents

Catherine Schumacher: Relationships, all of that. Oh, that's amazing. I love hearing that. That's so fun. So finally, I think almost all of my teacher friends, and I'm so blessed to get to know teachers in this job. It's seriously the best part of my job. But whenever I talk to teachers, they all seem to have something along the lines of, "I just wish, I just wish everyone else knew this thing about my work and what I do." So you have bunches of people listening to this podcast now who've probably never stood up in front of a classroom. So what would you want them to know about what you and your colleagues do every day?

Morgan Smith: Absolutely. I think that especially with social media now, things are so magnified. Some issues are just so magnified or some things are just buzz topics as you scroll through and you're, "I can't believe that would happen. Or is that happening in my school?" And if every parent that walks through my door in Greenville County Schools, with everything that I've known, we are working with you and your students and every resource we have available to create the best learning opportunity for your student.

Morgan Smith: We are here as a team. There is not a teacher that I have ever met in this district that is not looking out for you and your students because we want to see them go so far. And when we look at the data, when we look at what's happening in our district, we're proving it.

Catherine Schumacher: It's working.

Morgan Smith: Yes. We love your kids. There is not a kid that I haven't had, even those ones that have rough days or irk your nerves sometimes. I think parents even listening to this could say, my own kid has irked my nerves sometimes, but you love them with all your heart and you want to see them grow. And so we're working as a team. If I could tell anybody anything, we are working with you and your student, everything we've got to build the best opportunity for your students. We love your students and we want them to grow.

Catherine Schumacher: Yeah, I love that. Rachel Turner, who leads the Future Teachers Academy, "Love first, teach second."

Morgan Smith: Absolutely.

Catherine Schumacher: It's the thing. And every time I talk to teachers, that's what they say. So it's just wonderful to hear it coming from you. It doesn't surprise me one bit. Morgan, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been so fun. Such a joy to talk to you. Congratulations on this big honor. And I hope that the rest of the school year is just fantastic.

Morgan Smith: Thank you so much.

Catherine Schumacher: Simple Civics: EdTalks is a joint project of Greater Good Greenville, Greenville First Steps, and Public Education Partners Greenville County.