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.
In today's competitive world, is a high school diploma enough to guarantee success? For the nearly 6,000 students graduating from Greenville County Schools each year, the answer is no. That's why the district has pioneered Graduation Plus, a transformative K-12 initiative designed to give every student a competitive edge by the time they walk across the graduation stage. This program ensures students leave with more than a diploma; they leave with tangible assets like college credits or valuable industry credentials.
This episode of Simple Civics: Ed Talks dives deep into how Graduation Plus is reshaping the future for students. Host Catherine Schumacher sits down with Eric Williams, Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools, and Katie Porter, Director of the CTE Innovation Center, to explore the powerful impact of this initiative. They discuss the strategy behind giving students a "launch" rather than just an exit from high school, aiming for a competitive advantage over the thousands of other graduates in South Carolina. A major engine for this success are the district's robust Career and Technical Education programs, which have already helped students earn over 13,000 industry credentials in 2024 alone. You'll learn about the state-of-the-art CTE Innovation Center, a hub for hands-on learning in fields like aerospace, cybersecurity, and engineering, where students partner with industry giants like BMW and Michelin from day one. The conversation also covers the district's commitment to opportunity for all students, detailing how they are eliminating barriers for students through innovative solutions for transportation and by offering paid high school internships in Greenville, SC via the LaunchGVL program. Furthermore, the episode explores the benefits of high school dual enrollment in South Carolina through a partnership with Greenville Tech, and a new $35 million federal GEAR UP grant aimed at strengthening the pipeline for post-secondary success. A key theme is the importance of middle school career readiness, with guests sharing how early exposure through programs like the "Camp Innovate" summer camp helps students and parents discover the vast number of pathways available, from graphic design to advanced manufacturing. This discussion challenges the old narrative of vocational training, highlighting how modern CTE provides the technical and professional skills needed for a changing economy and supports the nonlinear career paths many successful professionals now take.
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Introduction
Catherine Schumacher: Each year, almost 6,000 students graduate from Greenville County Schools. It used to be that getting a diploma was the ultimate goal for high school students, but today the goal is graduation plus. I'm Catherine Schumacher with Public Education Partners, and today on Simple Civics Ed Talks, we will learn more about Graduation Plus, a transformative initiative that is helping Greenville County Schools graduates get a leg up on the competition, especially in the arena of career and technical education, or CTE.
I'm joined by Eric Williams, Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools and Career Centers for Greenville County Schools, and Katie Porter, who serves as the director of the district's CTE Innovation Center. Well, I'm so excited to have you two today to talk about both Graduation Plus and career and technical education here in Greenville County Schools, which I personally think is just one of the great strengths of our school district here in Greenville. So, Katie and Eric, thank you for being here.
Katie Porter: Absolutely.
Catherine Schumacher: So, Eric, let's start with the main thing. Can you explain to our listeners what Graduation Plus means and how it's impacting students across all grade levels here in Greenville County Schools?
Defining Graduation Plus: A Competitive Advantage for Students
Eric Williams: The Graduation Plus initiative is over a decade old now. It was really an idea and strategic partnership from our school board, the Greenville County School Board, and our superintendent, W. Burke Royster, to enhance educational experiences for our students and to ensure that every one of our students, in addition to having a high school diploma, would have something else that would give them a competitive advantage.
In the state of South Carolina, roughly 50,000 students graduate from high school every year, and we wanted our students to have a competitive advantage as they go out into whatever the next step is. We define graduation plus as either industry credentials or college credit as they move forward after high school. And we've been able to make significant gains in both of those areas over the last six or seven years as we move that initiative forward.
We use the analogy of the stage at graduation. Instead of just a flat stage where students are walking into whatever the next step in their journey is, they're launched out into the next step of that journey with a competitive advantage over those other 44,000 students that are graduating high school. We know that college acceptance and scholarships, all those things are competitive.
But even our skilled trade students are moving into a competitive world. So internships, apprenticeships, journeyman experiences, those are all competitive experiences that they have to be selected for as well. So if we can give them a certification, an industry credential, or better yet, a stacked series of industry credentials, that's really important. If we could give them college credits, not a score on an exam, but an actual college credit through dual enrollment or an AP class that they could take and move forward with them.
And speaking of industry credentials, we've seen those numbers grow to above 13,000 industry credentials for last year's graduated class over the last several years. I feel like we're making great progress. There's always work to be done, but that's the crux of what we're trying to accomplish for our students.
Catherine Schumacher: So, Katie, you're a unique cog in this wheel of career and technical education here in Greenville because you are the director of the Career and Technical Innovation Center, the CTE Innovation Center. And it's such a unique facility and program. So can you just take a minute to explain why it's different from anything else that we have in our public schools here in South Carolina and really nationally?
The CTE Innovation Center: A Hub for Hands-On Learning
Katie Porter: Absolutely. Obviously the Career Center concept is not new, but the further we go in our journey of having the Innovation Center, I am realizing it is still new for a lot of people, especially you look at parents of kindergartners and first grade. They haven't looked down the road yet at what's available in high school. But we're unique because we have specialized programs. Eric used the word launch, competitive advantage. And that's what we're able to give children. Hands-on learning combined with academic. We're very heavy in math and science, a lot of engineering concepts.
That's not to say that's what we will always offer. And that is the piece that makes us unique, is that we are an incubation hub. There are amazing programs at the four traditional centers, but as our workforce shifts and the needs in the upstate and throughout the state change, we want to make sure we are staying on that cutting edge so that our kids do have competitive advantage.
We hear all the time from our four-year colleges, two-year colleges, our industry partners, that the fact that our students are already exposed to so many of these concepts, they have a baseline understanding of the world of aerospace or intro to cybersecurity. They can program robots and they have certifications on top of that. You talk about competitive advantage. I love the graduation plus concept. And in our building we add 10 different pluses, so it's a running joke we're graduation plus plus plus plus.
Internships, we require our students to present to industry partners on the first day of school. So just two days ago my building was full of industry partners—BMW, Michelin, Sage Automotive Interiors—and they were there on day one not because they had to be, because they wanted to be, to start getting to know our kids. I think that's the piece that I have loved to watch is the investment from our community partners. We use them. They say to use them. So we reach out and they start to know our students and there's a face and a name. As they cross that stage, they now have so many options to go out and be successful, to be launched, as Eric called it.
Catherine Schumacher: There are so many examples of students who have gone through either the Innovation Center or career and technical education programs in the centers or housed in the high schools, and they're getting employed right out of school, or they're going to Greenville Tech and finishing up a two-year, or they're going to Clemson and working on their engineering degree or teaching degree, which is one of my personal favorite career and technical education CTE pathways that we have is for future teachers here in Greenville.
That's part of what I find so interesting about Graduation Plus is that it is accessible to every single student across the district and regardless of where they live or what school they attend. So, Eric, I would love for you to talk a little bit about, again, the Graduation Plus Plus, what are some of the investments that the district is making to ensure that more students can take advantage of G Plus? Because I know there are a bunch of really innovative ideas that we're pursuing here in the district.
Breaking Down Barriers: Ensuring Access to G Plus Opportunities
Eric Williams: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's an important distinguishing point is graduation plus is for every single student. It's not, we hope that every student gets a diploma and some get the plus that goes with it. So we're on this mission to ensure we continue to grow that percentage of our graduates. We're north of 80% now, and we're really excited about that, but we're not going to stop there.
Catherine Schumacher: It's 95% is the goal, I think, in the new strategic plan.
Eric Williams: That's right. It's 95%. We're at a stage where in order to do that, in order to continue moving forward, the work is really about identifying the barriers that students have to participating in those programs and then trying to eliminate those barriers. And we're fortunate just to have some really tremendous partnerships to be able to do that. Our LaunchGVL program with the Chamber of Commerce has been a key factor in that, and they've been a great partner to come alongside us and talk about what barriers might students have to participating in an internship.
For example, transportation may be a challenge. How do we get a student from their homeschool to their place of employment for an internship? So we've been able to put in some innovative programs. We've been able to give some Uber gift cards. Sometimes we've been able to pay for transportation or to give a stipend for those students to be able to help eliminate that barrier. And the fact that all of those internships are paid. Oftentimes, we're seeing students have to make a choice between working a part-time job and working an unpaid internship because they need to contribute to the family income. But now, if we have companies that are providing paid opportunities for our students, that lessens that burden on the students.
A couple other unique opportunities, [Could not verify with context] is a partnership that we have with Greenville Tech. It's in its infancy, but we're really excited about that. It's to offer dual enrollment CTE, career technical education programming, to students on Greenville Tech's campus. It's a challenge for us as we grow CTE around the district to have continued space at our career centers. And what we see is that at some of our schools, students won't leave their campus to go take advantage of those opportunities.
So again, in terms of eliminating barriers, we provide bus transportation in partnership with Greenville Tech. Students take their core academic classes at their home school and they go over to Greenville Tech campus and they do things like HVAC or industrial electricity or even some core academic college classes. We've started to see that program really take off and we're excited about that opportunity as well.
Finally, most recently, we have what we call our GEAR UP South Carolina grant.
Catherine Schumacher: This is so exciting. This is a big deal.
Eric Williams: We are fired up. And GEAR UP has been going on for a long time around the country. It is federal funds that come in through a fiscal agent. In our case, University of South Carolina is the fiscal agent for the grant. But it provides us an opportunity to really invest in the college and career readiness of our students, starting all the way down in middle school.
Catherine Schumacher: Which is when it's so important to help kiddos start thinking about what that pathway is going to look like.
Eric Williams: Absolutely. It's a $35 million seven-year grant. And we're just a part of it. We're a large part of it because we're a large district, but it's going on around the state. And we really have some unique opportunities, specifically with our students that have barriers to participation in education after high school, to be able to influence and impact the way both they and their families think about life after high school.
Catherine Schumacher: I think that's one of the things we've certainly been thinking a lot about at PEP is how can we help more families understand what these opportunities mean? Dual enrollment, that didn't exist when most of us were coming through. And so the breadth of opportunity that students have. And so, Katie, that leads to my question to you is, if you're a parent of a middle schooler, and you don't have this necessarily on your radar and you need to. And we can because it really is such a benefit here in Greenville is the different opportunities. So, what would you say to a parent who has a kid who's obsessed with airplanes or aeronautics or computers? Video games and coding. Do we know a child who is not obsessed with video games? What would you recommend they be doing now to get them ready to prepare and just understand what those pathways can look like at the Innovation Center or really anywhere across Greenville County Schools?
Starting Early: Career Readiness for Middle School Students
Katie Porter: I think it's just super important really for us as a school district to make sure we are getting that information out. Social media is a great way. Everything I post, I try to tag either the high schools or the middle schools just so that it's out there on their radar. Our middle school is the age that research shows that that is the time frame that students really start forming what they want to do.
I think on the parents' end, it may involve just asking good questions, doing a little bit of research. I know we were talking earlier about our district website. I think it's much more accessible now and you can find opportunities easily. Speaking with counselors, attending when they're open house nights, getting out there and deciding.
We piloted this past summer a middle school summer camp, and it was Camp Innovate. We started small. We put it out. We served about 130 students throughout the summer. It was just a one-day free camp. And the response we got was just overwhelmingly positive. Parents, a lot of them were just excited, "Wow, I've never been in this building." And we've watched it go up. But, what do you do in this building? So a lot of conversations were able to be had. And it was even conversations that may lead to, "Hey, if it's not aerospace, well, they really may be interested in business and marketing. Did you know the high schools offer those types of pathways?"
Catherine Schumacher: Graphic design and all of these.
Katie Porter: Even that notion that even in a high school trajectory, there are so many options for kids. And I think that's why I get so excited about working in Greenville County. We literally have something for everybody and keeping an open mind. I've been in Greenville since 2018 and I've watched CTE just blossom and grow. And it's been great to be a part of that. But helping make sure we're changing that narrative that CTE is no longer your granddad's manufacturing.
We laugh about that a lot, but it's true. It's highly technical. And if parents really want their child to have an advantage, they need to be exposed. What is the latest technology? Are you able to process that? I tell my students and families, we say it all the time, you walk across the stage and get a diploma. Well, that's a piece of paper. What are you going to do with it? Are you able to communicate? And we offer that in CTE because they're really exposed to be the best version of themselves. Lots of opportunity there.
Eric Williams: I think that's exactly what we're trying to accomplish. And we are really trying to make this shift to Graduation Plus as a K-12 initiative. Oftentimes we just naturally think about middle school, high school being those times when you're going to start honing in on a career. But at the elementary level as well, we know that there are foundational skills that are entirely important. So when Jeff McCoy, our Associate Superintendent for Academics, talks about reading levels and ensuring that all students can read and read on grade level and above, it's really important for us to dive into that and help our elementary school teachers build on those skills.
But we also want our elementary folks to start just opening that funnel up to let students know what opportunities are available and pushing in on some of those professional skills as well. Teamwork is so important. And if you could learn that at the elementary level, when you get to the middle school or at the Innovation Center and you're doing a team project or a cross-curriculum project with another program at the Innovation Center, those things come a little bit more naturally. And so helping our parents and our families and communities see Graduation Plus not as just something that happens at a secondary level, but happens across all grade levels.
Catherine Schumacher: We recently spoke with Wendy Thacker from ScanSource and talking about the work that they're doing with Thomas E. Kerns, and they've been doing career days, they're doing career days and visits with folks coming in from ScanSource and working in the classrooms, there's so many different opportunities in these companies. And I think it's also really powerful to think about in a changing economy, where we were just talking about AI, what are the kinds of jobs and skills and talents that only people can do?
I think that's talking about working together in that project-based learning that we're seeing so much of in our elementary levels. It's so incredibly valuable. I think that's a real benefit to the work that we're doing here around Graduation Plus. So as we wrap up, Eric, you are the superintendent for career and technical education among your very long title. What is it that you really want people to do? Think about and know about career and technical education in Greenville County Schools today?
Rethinking Post-Graduation: The Power of Nonlinear Career Paths
Eric Williams: I tell the story of being a principal at Wade Hampton High School. And every year for the homecoming game, I would stand top of the steps just from a supervision standpoint for a football game. And students would come back. You would have graduates that would come back. And oftentimes they were doing great in the career path or the educational path that they had chosen. But occasionally they would say to me, "I did the college route for six months or a few months. And I just don't think I'm going back or I don't think I'm going to continue. I wish I knew what some of these other pathways were that were available."
Really at that point, we, in our district, started to steer that ship to say, hey, there are a multitude of options available to students. We often think about the after-graduation experience being this linear journey straight into college. We're going to go four years at college. Maybe we'll do some graduate work or maybe we'll go straight into the workforce. But helping our students know and understand that, especially with these CTE pathways, there are some nonlinear routes, where you can go and you can graduate.
Catherine Schumacher: You can zig and zag.
Eric Williams: Absolutely. And let's go work for a few years. Our BMW Scholars Program is a great example. Go work for BMW for a couple of years in a mechatronics field. Guess what? They're going to provide tuition assistance. So you'll do a couple of years and then maybe there's an opportunity to do this bachelor's degree program that we have at Greenville Tech in advanced manufacturing. Or maybe you decide engineering is my pathway and I want to move towards a Clemson engineering program.
Helping students just know and understand. I get it, some students, and I've got five kids, and so some have chosen the straight line and some are zigging and zagging. But helping students know and understand that there are multiple options for them to pursue this and it doesn't have to look the same. If you want to do it and you don't want to have any debt and finances are a concern for you, hey, there's a great option for you to work for a little while, then to come back, to go back to school. We've got companies, we're so fortunate here in Greenville that we have companies that are willing to support that workforce development, really invest in students and their journey and provide assistance for that.
Catherine Schumacher: I met the BMW Scholar at the Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Night at the drive game not too long ago and Greenville High, Donaldson, now doing that. And such an incredible kid. You could see him light up when he was talking about this opportunity. And it's just, it's so rewarding. And that's the point, is to meet every kid where they are, to find their thing, and then to support them as they find that pathway.
So I think that's such a fantastic note to close on. And also shout out to the partners, obviously, public education partners. We'd love that. And I think Greenville is just so blessed. And how can we help more companies of all sizes, smaller employers, too. How can we help them tap into this and support the journeys of our students here in Greenville? This has been so fun. I could talk about CTE and the Innovation Center and the work that you all are leading every day. It is so powerful and so important and such a testament to the power of having a big unified district. These are the kinds of shiny things that we get to have when we invest in our public schools here in Greenville. So I'm grateful to the two of you. Thank you for your leadership and your creativity and everything that you do for the students.
Eric Williams: Thank you, Catherine.
Katie Porter: Thank you.
Credits
Simple Civics: Greenville County is Produced by Podcast Studio X.
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