The skills and mindset needed to lead a high school band have harmoniously translated to the superintendency for longtime South Carolina educator Craig Witherspoon.
The chief of Richland County School District One, who was a saxophone player long before he arrived at central office, compares leading a district to assembling and conducting a band. This includes putting the right musicians in the right chairs—from tuba to woodwinds to the all-important drum line—and then choosing the music that best suits the ensemble in its performances and festival appearances.
“In district administration, you don’t get to pick and choose some of those things. Some of those challenges are there for you and thrust upon you,” Witherspoon explains. “I look at that analogy, ‘Are we all on the same sheet of music?’ You certainly have a conductor, but the ensemble—or the team—makes the music.
“You let those individuals, you let them shine,” he adds.
Witherspoon, who was recently named superintendent of the year by the South Carolina Alliance of Black School Educators, joined District Administration’s “Talking Out of School” podcast to discuss his strategies for raising his district’s graduation rate, including tracking students’ individual progress as early as ninth grade and offering credit recovery, alternative schools and hybrid virtual instruction.
“We backwards mapped, and looked at what do the kids need: ‘Why are they not graduating? What’s going on? Why are they credit deficient in any given year?'” he explains. “We have our our executive directors, and not only our school administrators, but district administrators too that may have a cohort of students that they call every morning, ‘Hey? Are you up? It’s time to go to school. What do you need?'”
Witherspoon’s team will also work with students’ employers to help arrange work schedules that leave ample time for attending school and completing assignments, he adds. “That gets students to the starting line of life,” he concludes.
Listen to the podcast below, or on Apple, Podbean or Spotify.
