This episode of Simple Civics: Greenville County is brought to you by Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, providing free books to children zero to five throughout Greenville County. To sign up, visit greenvillefirststeps.org/freebooks.
What do teachers wish you knew about their daily work in the classroom? In this episode, we pull back the curtain on the complex world of teaching in today's public schools, and introduce listeners to two educators who will be regular voices on the Simple Civics EdTalks podcasts. The conversation centers on one of the most critical issues facing our communities: the urgent need for building trust in public education. Catherine Schumacher of Public Education Partners is joined by two veteran Greenville County Schools educator leaders, Mary Leslie Anderson and Erin Rigot, to tackle the growing "us vs. them" mentality between parents and educators and lay out a roadmap for rebuilding that essential community trust.
This episode explores the real, lived experiences of educators to demystify the profession for those outside school walls. Mary Leslie and Erin share their personal journeys into teacher leadership, from their first meeting at Tanglewood Middle School to co-founding their own educational consulting firm, RootED Consulting. They discuss the critical need for better parent teacher communication, arguing that no one wins when students, parents, and teachers aren't on the same team. Throughout the conversation, they identify the key challenges in modern education, including the impact of technology like Chromebooks, the student mental health crisis, and the vast gap between public perception and classroom reality. If you’ve ever wondered what do teachers wish you knew, this discussion provides a powerful and honest answer, challenging the outdated view of schools as simple information factories and revealing the deeply human work of developing engaged, thoughtful citizens. This is a foundational conversation for parents, community members, and anyone invested in the success of our public schools and the goal of building trust in public education.
About Our Guests:
Mary Leslie Anderson is a Title I ELA specialist with 25 years of experience in Greenville County Schools. A graduate of the district herself, she is deeply committed to increasing social capital and strengthening her community through education.
Erin Rigot is an instructional coach and a passionate advocate for teachers and students. Known for her work on paid parental leave for teachers, Erin focuses on using her voice to highlight the real-world complexities and triumphs of public education.
Together, they founded RootED Consulting, a consulting firm dedicated to exposing the multifaceted work teachers do every day and fostering stronger relationships between schools, families, and the community.
Links:
Introduction
Catherine Schumacher: What do teachers wish you knew about what they do every day in the classroom? We are about to find out. I'm Catherine Schumacher with Public Education Partners, and today on Simple Civics Ed Talks, we are joined by two incredible educator leaders from Greenville County Schools, Mary Leslie Anderson, a Title I ELA specialist, and Erin Rigot, an instructional coach. Five years ago, Mary Leslie and Erin launched a consulting business called RootED Consulting, focused on educational leadership.
Erin and Mary Leslie will be joining us regularly on this podcast to share their experiences and have conversations with other educators about the great work that is happening every day in our schools and classrooms, address common misconceptions, and demystify the complex reality of teaching in today's public schools. Let's get the conversation started.
Meet the Educators: The Journey to Teacher Leadership
Excited to be here with you, too. Thank you for joining us here on Simple Civics Ed Talks as we start this new journey together. I'm with Mary Leslie and Erin. So you guys are going to be big partners on this series of podcasts. And so excited to have you and for our listeners to get to know you a little bit and hear your story and your journey and set the stage for the work that we're going to be doing together and what we're going to be sharing with the community because there's so much great stuff. Mary Leslie, we'll start with you. Talk really quickly, just introduce yourself and say how you and Erin, what it is you do and why your voices are going to be such a great part of Simple Civics Ed Talks.
Mary Leslie Anderson: I'm Mary Leslie Anderson. I've been a Greenville County Schools employee for 25 years, my 25th year. My why, as I got into education in the late 90s, was to increase social capital for my community. I'm a graduate of Greenville County Schools. This is my hometown, my community. And so I've always wanted to be here and enriching the community as my purpose and my home.
In 2011, I was an assistant principal at Tanglewood Middle School. We were sitting around a conference room table, maybe even doing some interviews in the summer. And our secretary walked back into the conference room and she said, there is a woman here who wants to hand her resume to y'all. And so I said, well, I'll come out or whatever. And so I went out, and there was Erin. She introduced herself, told me she wanted a job at Tanglewood Middle School as an ELA teacher. And I said, well, we're all back here. Would you like to come back right now? So she came back, and the rest is history. We hired her, of course.
And three years later, I left to go be the principal at League Academy. And a year after my first year, Erin called and said, I'm coming over, right? You got something for me? And then we've just been together ever since.
Catherine Schumacher: That's wonderful. That's so great. And, Erin, for longtime Simple Civics listeners, you'll know Erin is a repeat guest on the Simple Civics podcast. And so we interviewed you a couple of years ago, Derek Lewis and I did, about your advocacy around paid parental leave for teachers. So you've used your voice. What is your journey to leadership and education? And how does this podcast and working with the work that you do with Mary Leslie, how does that play into it?
Erin Rigot: I did not grow up in Greenville County. I was an Army kid. And so I have lived all over and always, always wanted to feel part of a community. And so when I was hired in Greenville County Schools, that was my first experience being really embraced and feeling like I was getting to know what Greenville County was and also watching the growth of Greenville County at the time. It was around 2010, 2011. And I thankfully knew from my student teaching experience in Greenville that this was a good place to move to.
So that's how I started in Greenville 15 years ago now, which is wild. I knew I wanted to keep teaching, but I did not have a great first year. I had a horrible first year teaching and it was not a Greenville County school, but I knew the potential I had in this community, thankfully, from my student teaching experience. And so I did. I went school by school and I had met someone at Tanglewood at Shining Stars.
Catherine Schumacher: Which is the Greenville County Schools recruiting event.
Erin Rigot: Correct. And so I said, I'm just going to go in person. I was dressed for an interview like I was in a pencil skirt and my my button-off sweater ready to go. And so that was just one of those days that was an amazing experience to be at the right place and truly find my fit. And Tanglewood was an amazing four years. I loved my time there, and it was the start of our journey. But I think what I've learned in this profession is that you just have to keep following the next part of your passion.
I started just wanting to be a teacher, just wanting to be a middle school teacher. That was my ultimate goal. And so when I did that, after a few years, I was like, what is my passion calling me into next? And it was teaching writing. I love teaching writing, and I wanted to learn more about how to be a better teacher of writing. And so I followed that into the Upstate Writing Project that led me into some grant consulting across the state. And that opened my eyes to how other districts look in our state.
And so fast forward 15 years, and now I'm really being pulled into advocacy and how to speak up for the students across the state, but also Greenville County. We are a wonderful, wonderful district, and I think there's a lot of talk out there in different avenues that's a lot of negative teacher talk, but there's also the toxic positivity teacher talk. And there's really not much in the middle that's talking about what it's actually like in the classroom today as a student, as a teacher, as a parent, as an administrator. So now in my instructional coach role at League and our entrepreneurial work, we are really trying to tap into what it is we do every day, how we're growing teachers, and how we can use what we're doing now to do that outside of just our building.
From Classroom to Consulting: The Mission Behind RootED Consulting
Catherine Schumacher: That is perfect and so exciting to hear. I think this idea that entrepreneurialness of teachers and teachers as leaders is such an underreported fact about what is going on in our teacher profession, because you are experts in leadership. You are coaches every single day in the classroom. And so I know an awful lot of amazing educators here in Greenville who have these, they're more elevated than side hustles. It's teacherpreneurialism. That's what I've called it, because it really is this idea of how can you take the skills that you are learning in the classroom as an administrator and how can you pour into, again, that next generation or folks that are in the field right now.
And so you all had approached Derek Lewis from First Steps and I, since we talked and had been on a podcast together before and said, we're thinking of doing a podcast by teachers for teachers. How can we do that? What was the why behind that? And talk a little bit about how your partnership with us on Simple Civics Ed Talks is going to support that.
Mary Leslie Anderson: The inception of Erin and I as entrepreneurs happened recently. In 2020, the actual work of it began. Years before, we dreamt, I guess, together as a principal and a teacher together of some sort of consulting firm that was literacy-based, actually. I'm an ELA teacher as well. And so that's really what it was.
But then when COVID hit in 2020, the fall of 2020, we saw something in our educational community. It was so divisive. There was and continues to be an us versus them mentality between teachers and administrators and also between teachers and parents that really drives our work and what we want. We want to eliminate that. We want to grow our community into a place where the school is the center of each community, where parents and teachers and administrators are all working together and understand that common good of the student and the strong emotional and capital build of the community, actually.
And so we saw that and we started our business called RootED Consulting in an effort to expose what teachers do every day for the students. What it really means is that we were so much more of a support to students and families than we ever realized. And we want people to know that.
Tackling the Tough Topics: Key Challenges in Modern Education
Catherine Schumacher: I think this idea of pulling back the curtain, because there is, it's such a big system. And we talked in the first episode under this Simple Civics Ed Talks umbrella is, why does it matter? And it's such a big part of our civic life. And here in Greenville, we do it so well. And then I think that positive, how can we focus on positive stories and just explain some things that people probably don't get? And you all having been front lines, you really get it. And so I think it's really exciting to have that voice and think about that. So we've talked a little bit about some topics that we're interested in. What are some topics that you guys think that your voice is going to be particularly powerful in talking about over these Simple Civics Ed Talks episodes?
Erin Rigot: One that jumps to mind is technology. I think that's a really big conversation right now, especially with other parents that I know. We talk about that a lot. What does that mean in terms of cell phones and Chromebooks? There are the two that really come to mind. And we have an incredible, incredible tech team here in Greenville County Schools. So I'm excited to interview them and talk to them about what it actually looks like today in the classroom. There's so much out there that you can read and just assume that's happening in our own district when it may not be the case. There's also been some trial and error. I remember when we got Chromebooks for the very first time all the way to now when we're trying to get a little bit away from them. So there's been such a learning of trial and error with that experience.
I'm also very excited to have some parent conversations at different grade levels. What does the role of a parent look like for an elementary student versus a middle school student versus a high school student. We love middle school. I'm excited to bring in some elementary and high school people to the table to have some really good conversations that are going to help parents in this community realize that we're a team, that we are a team. We are trying to help your student. And we, she mentioned, that mentality of us versus them, no one wins. No one wins in that. And so how to really help there be a better understanding of what elementary versus middle versus high looks like for the student, but also the parent.
Mary Leslie Anderson: I really want to change the way the community or the society in general thinks about education in terms of teachers and students, like they're robots, like the teacher walks in, delivers some information and the students either take it in or they don't. And then we have grades. It's not that anymore. It's a very humanistic system that needs to be constantly developed, constantly changed in terms of teacher needs and student needs. And as we continue to grow technology, like Erin said, the mental health crisis that we are facing day in and day out in our schools and our parents are facing the same things that we have got to make this idea of school more human. We've got to understand people and people who are different than us, people who don't look like us. We've got to figure out how to understand each other and what motivates or inspires people to grow.
Catherine Schumacher: Now, I think that's so wonderful. And I'm not, as I always say, I'm not an educator. I'm obviously a parent of students who've gone through Greenville County Schools and a public school graduate. And that's part of why, that's part of my passion. But that the gap between perception and reality and this idea of schools as community, like beating hearts in our communities, in our neighborhoods. And I think we are so lucky in Greenville because and I think we take it for granted.
And so I think that's something that's very exciting about the K-12 space. And obviously, we're going to be talking about early childhood. Derek and First Steps are going to be focused and we're going to talk about how we're going to talk about post-secondary, too. I think the idea is how can we look at that whole arc of how do you take a tiny human and turn them into an engaged, caring, thoughtful, educated person who is part of this community? I think that word, that community, it's such a powerful one to sit in our school. So I think I agree with you. I think that's a great note.
The Core Mission: Rebuilding Trust in Public Education
Obviously, we're going to have hopefully thousands of people listening to these podcasts. What is something that you want listeners to keep in mind when they hear your voice? What is something that you want them to keep in mind as you're sharing your lived experience from schools with them and with your colleagues?
Erin Rigot: A huge part of a goal with this podcast is to help those that are not in public education on a day-to-day basis build some trust with the teachers in their community. I want the trust to be both ways. I want to have some parent perspective as well. But I think a huge fight that we see on a day-to-day basis is just this lack of trust in public education. Not only do we want to protect public education, but I think there's just a really huge misunderstanding of what public education looks like today. Because we think, because I went to middle school or elementary school or high school, I can exactly envision what my student's doing all day or how that works or what it's like to be a teacher.
But you really, unless you have walked in those teacher's shoes currently, not five years ago, not 10 years ago, not 20 years ago, you really don't have that perspective. And so I think building that trust of, I can trust that this educator, no matter what they're teaching, has been well-educated, is qualified, has experience, and immediately can be trusted in some capacity. I'm not saying educators are perfect by any means. We have a lot of growth every year. Every single year, things are different. So every single year, we are trying to learn and become better. But if we can build that trust just a little bit so that parents feel more likely to pick up the phone or send an email or just reach out to the teacher instead of talking about them or trying to just talk to their student or trying to jump to the principal, like trying to understand that that's a professional educator in the classroom and just building that level of trust back up.
Mary Leslie Anderson: With that trust, working on changing the perspective of folks who have never walked in a teacher's shoes or an administrator's shoes. Like Erin said, understanding that there's so much more to this job as a teacher or an administrator than just school. And that perspective, I think, is very important because as public educators, we're servants of the public. I believe in servant leadership. I believe in creating servant leadership environments at the schools where I have worked. And so just building the perspective, again, that you can trust your school leaders and your teacher leaders and your teachers to have the best interest at heart for the students. You really can. And that public school is not the big, bad school, Dangerous Minds or something, that really we're blessed and grateful to have these amazing public schools. And I want to change that perspective.
Catherine Schumacher: I think that's wonderful. And I think that's a great note to end on because I really do think that helping people understand not only what we have here and the unique opportunities that are provided and the unique leaders like the two of you that we have working day in and day out, but really how can we as a community continue to support, invest, champion and cheer on public school students, teachers? That's the through line. So thank you both. Thank you both for joining us on this journey together with Simple Civics Ed Talks and for everything that you are doing every day to support the students here in Greenville County Schools.
Mary Leslie Anderson: Thank you so much.
Erin Rigot: Thank you.
Catherine Schumacher: Simple Civics Ed Talks is a joint project of Greater Good Greenville, Greenville First Steps, and Public Education Partners Greenville County.
Catherine Puckett: Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville. Greater Good Greenville was catalyzed by the merger of the Nonprofit Alliance and the Greenville Partnership for Philanthropy. You can learn more on our website at greatergoodgreenville.org.
Credits
Simple Civics: Greenville County is Produced by Podcast Studio X.
A Greater Good Greenville project.
