BRYCE FIELDER CHECKS IN 6/17/26

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

All right, Brightfielder is joining us on the air. Good morning, sir.

SPEAKER_04 0:20

Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Yeah, so good to hear from you. So by any chance, did you uh pay attention to the uh gubernatorial debate yesterday when they were talking about specifically universal school choice?

SPEAKER_04 0:34

I caught a little bit of that, and of course, that's been a big topic of discussion here in South Carolina for some time now, and that comes as we are opening the gates of school choice, and many groups, including my group in the past, has pushed for universal, which basically means no limitations on parents' ability to choose. Um, so I think it's great to see that the candidates for governor are talking about that.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah, and it just is it's just very interesting that it's taking so long to get it done. What do you think is the holdup and what can people do about it?

SPEAKER_04 1:08

Well, I think there are just sort of political and practical realities, and like any good policy, it's sort of competing against other things that are going on through the legislative session. Of course, a few years ago, South Carolina did pass a historic education scholarship school choice program that was ultimately and sort of tragically struck down by the state Supreme Court. That was renewed when it was passed last year, and lawmakers approved the program. And so, in some ways, it's still just getting off the ground. But if you look at this conversation, I mean, people were talking about this back in the 90s. Um, and there are different types of school choice, one of which maybe we can talk about today deals with sort of open enrollment and public school uh school choice within the public school system, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Okay, so what does that mean? Because um I saw that you were uh wanted to give us more information about non-resident students applying for enrollment. What is that referring to?

SPEAKER_04 2:06

Right. So what we're talking about is open enrollment. And what this is is a form of public school choice. And the idea is that students are not bound to their residential school, uh, meaning that families can choose from schools outside of their attendance zone, at least that they can apply. Um, and so this was sort of implemented in the education scholarship law that we just talked about. And what it says is it says that every school district in South Carolina has to have an interdistrict open enrollment policy, which is just a fancy way of saying that every district has to allow students to apply out of county students, I should specify, to apply for enrollment inside of their county so long as space is available. Sort of the background here is some school districts had already done this already, and we can talk about those. But this creates a statewide mandate. Uh, the Department of Education has issued some guidelines, some best practices, and currently school districts are working on adjusting or passing those policies so that every single one of them has an interdistrict enrollment policy.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

All right, so there is a difference between interdistrict and intra-district. So is intra-district like going to schools within your own district, is that already allowed? I just I just want to be clear.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

That's another one of those where it's sort of on a piecemeal basis. So some uh districts have it. They will call it district school choice or again public school choice. And the idea is if there is a school on the other side of town, uh, but still within your district, and you're a parent you'd like to send your kid there, as long as there's space available, and typically parents will have to provide that transportation, they can apply and ultimately transfer their child. So that's intra, just meaning within the district. Uh, the other one that we're we're talking about based on this law is inter. And so imagine you're a family that sort of lives on the boundary of Georgetown County, uh, and there's a school in Ori County, which we've talked about. Many of the schools are really good in Ori County. Do you want to send your kid there? Um, this policy basically says that Ori must have a program in place that basic that at least lets parents apply. Um, and there would be eligibility criteria, make sure that there's capacity available, but ultimately it would open up a pathway for parents to enroll their kids in other school districts, including ones that they don't live in.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Do you think there really isn't any concept of true school choice unless transportation is attached?

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Well, I know it's a barrier. And I know that because I've had these conversations with parents. And I've also had conversations with school officials who have what we can call open enrollment, but transportation is not divided. And I've asked them directly um, is offering transportation something that would remove this burden and make it easier for more parents to do this? And they candidly told me yes. They just don't think it would be logistically feasible or efficient, and they think they would sort of lose money because our bus routes are done in a way that's meant to maximize efficiency, at least on paper. So I don't know that it fully rules it out. There are other creative ideas. Maybe if you can get your kid to that bus stop, they can still get on the bus so the bus routes aren't changed. Maybe we can start using ride share. Uh so I think there are definitely options, and the more transportation options that are available, I think ultimately the better.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah, absolutely. And quite frankly, we wouldn't have to have school choice if every school was doing great work. Like, you know, everyone would just go to the school according to their zip code.

SPEAKER_04 5:49

That's right. And the great thing about this is it says you're not stuck in a failing school. And you have options, even if of course we have charters, we've got homeschool now, which is seeing a lot of growth, a private school tool. And now this adds public schools to the mix. If there's a school on the other side of town, now you have an option or a pathway to at least enroll or apply.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Um you know when you're looking at candidates, what would be a question you would ask a candidate? Whether it would be a school board candidate, what would you be looking for in a school board candidate or maybe in a gubernatorial candidate when it comes to education?

SPEAKER_04 6:30

That's a great question. We actually just did a candidate training and I had a conversation with someone who was had done some research into what are sort of the best qualifications to make up a full board. And it's a little bit different when you're talking about a full board versus person. So probably what you want is number one, someone with a finance background. Um, having someone a legal background can also be very helpful, or at least coming from like the compliance and risk sector, because obviously there's a lot of important decisions that deal with liability and risk to the district. So I think you want sort of a variety of different professional backgrounds. And ultimately, I think that an understated quality is open-mindedness. Uh, you should be willing to sort of learn and assume that you don't know everything. And I that's true of all politicians, right? If they tell you they're on stage, they've got all the answers, they don't have all the answers. They're still learning, and that's certainly true for moving into the governor's office. What I hope they will all focus on are specific things that can be done within the public school system because private school choice has been a big topic. I think it's great. But I also think we need to make sure we're talking about students in the public schools and making sure they're achieving. So I would probably ask about their their position on uh technology in schools and what they think the appropriate pro approaches for that, you know, talking about Chromebooks and laptops, and we're seeing more districts move away from that because I really do think that's one of the most important issues going on right now in education.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Important in which way? Because we've had this conversation before, and I am like, I have realized now that that has not been a good addition to schools, is that these kids are on more screen time now at school, they're working on these iPads.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

Well, the truth is that our our schools are over-reliant on computers, and we've gotten away from traditional instruction, which is shown by many studies to be more effective and the brain retains information better and all that. So North Carolina had a proposal that basically would have told the districts to just keep track of how many dis uh computers are in your district and how much are you spending to maintain and fix them and then make that information public? So it didn't tell them get rid of it, but it would bring some transparency, and I think having those numbers would really wake people up and ultimately force a conversation. So that's the sort of thing I'd like to see us consider here in South Carolina, too.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Have has there been any, I guess, statistics on showing how it's impacted students' uh performance?

SPEAKER_04 9:05

I think it's hard to measure that directly because there are so many variables. I mean, what you would really need is maybe one district and measure performance during the digital era and then post the digital era, and that will just take some time to do that because frankly, not that many have fully disconnected. Um, but we are starting to see some early data on the effects of cell phone bans. Uh, and we've we're seeing marginal, in some cases, academic improvement and also behavioral improvement. So there's a transition period where things maybe trend downward for a year and then bounce back up. But ultimately, I think we're going to need a little bit more time to see the true results.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

So I just wanted to let you know, I don't know if you've heard about this, there's a new school opening up here called the South Carolina Construction Academy, and it's on Joe White Avenue in the city of Myrtle Beach where students can go there from K to eight and then from nine to twelve, um, they delve deeper into the um construction type of uh lessons and classes and tracks, and they can they can gear up for you know a four-year college, two-year college, or a tech school, or graduate with the ability to go right into working with an electrician type of skill or construction. And one of the things the principal uh Jay Anderson told us yesterday was uh they are not going to be having the iPads and stuff for the each student. It will be a digital classroom with smart boards and things like that. But when it came down to the individual students, it's way more hands-on. Did you um do you have any uh kind of insight on that?

SPEAKER_04 10:41

Well, first of all, I think it's wonderful. And I'm so glad that we are seeing more schools that are thinking outside of the box and encouraging apprenticeships and encouraging students to learn these hard skills while they're in school because ultimately what that means, you can have an apprenticeship like in your sophomore year, and by the time you graduate, you're going directly into the workforce and completely bypassing college. And for many students, that's the right path. You're saving money and you're making money sooner. It also doesn't surprise me that new schools are sort of looking at the landscape and saying, maybe we've done a little too much with technology and Chromebooks, and it's probably time to go back. So look, uh, you can take a look at how private schools, how Montessori, which you might consider these really high-performing schools, I assure you they are not overly dependent on laptops, and a lot of that learning is happening the old-fashioned way.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

I mean, they get enough screen time on their own, you know.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

You know, in my daughter's school, and she'll be attending second grade next next year. This year, but later. Uh they made a concerted effort to cut out almost all the electronics. Oh, it's almost non-existent now. Whereas before when she first got there in kindergarten, there was a lot of relying on that, and they they pulled back so much. And the students they feel anecdotal. They feel their students are doing better without those devices in the classroom.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Right. Yeah. Well, uh, we appreciate your time, Bryce. Now, do you have any um school board leader uh training classes going on?

SPEAKER_04 12:10

We do. We will be out on the coast next week. We are hosting our School Board Summer Conference with a group called School Boards for Academic Excellence. And that is going to be taking place in Charleston from June 24th to 26th. We do have a few more spots available, so if you'd like to attend, you can visit our website at schoolboardleader.com and check out the event page. Uh, we'd love to have you join us.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

All right. Thank you so much, Bryce Fielder from the Carolina Academic Leadership Network. Uh, we appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

Thanks, Liz. The Liz Callaway Show with Nick Summers. We'll be right back.