January 25, 2023
Good morning. I honor God for this day, and I extend my greetings and thanks to the various elected and appointed officials who represent one or more of the 124 single-member districts in the great state of South Carolina. I also thank the members of the National School Choice Week Committee and the leaders and visionaries at My South Carolina Education for bringing us together to celebrate the options parents have for educating their children in our state. I am honored to be lent this opportunity to share my professional "why" and my passion for developing the children of our state, our country, and our world here today.
At Royal Live Oaks Academy in Hardeeville, South Carolina, we are continually repositioning ourselves to focus forward on our core business, which is educating students. I realize, of course, that this is not a unique focus, since all of us educators in public and private schools; charter and homeschools; virtual schools, hybrid schools, and in-person schools commit ourselves daily to this one thing. That is, we knowingly take on the challenge of providing our scholars with the intellectual wherewithal–the academic tools and socioemotional capacity–for entering into their respective destinies.
This daily return to the principal, the most important thing, educating students for the fulfillment of their futures, is also not new. It was educators' commitment to student growth above all else that produced me, after all. My story is unlikely. I have been so many versions of the at-risk student. In my early years, I was dependent on welfare, subsidized housing, and school breakfast and lunch for my basic needs. I was the transient student who left a single parent home to live with a grandparent on a fixed income. I was the student who required guidance referrals and regular guidance counseling as I grew into middle school age, awkward, struggling with suicidal ideation, and potentially headed into the risky behaviors that too often derail the children we fight to serve. I was the high school student that couldn't pick a major, or a college, or a career. And every step of the way, I want you to know that there were educators and mentors who persisted… through these obstacles.
They didn't see my socioeconomic status as a barrier to their work because socioeconomic status was not the principal thing. They didn't see my displacement from my parents as a barrier to their work because it was not the principal thing. What I wore, where I lived, where I came from, the race I was born into, not even my attitude as a child or my early feelings about school… none of these things, for those educators, were deal breakers. Despite what I showed up looking like on paper or in presentation, my teachers, counselors, and principals… my superintendents… continually refocused themselves on producing persons positioned to go prepared into their individual futures. In a very real way, my schooling experience was about me becoming the best me, not about my circumstances.
Today, I am privileged to walk among educators as Dr. Timothy because of those people, and I am doubly pleased to partially bear the responsibility for continuing the noble tradition–nay, the high calling–of supporting and developing the children of our future, the next great crop of world creators and innovators.
The children in this assembly, and in our schools, are the next step in the evolution of humanity. They will tackle the myriad challenges of an ever-changing world, and they are more than capable of doing so, as long as we play our part in unyieldingly focusing on the principal, the most important thing, which is educating children.
There are many distractors in the present age that want our attention and our energy, but we cannot allow the political banter, the economic pendulum of uncertainty, the classist chatter, or the religious rhetoric of the time to interfere with the key thing that we show up to work to do.
Schooling is for the scholars… the children… the students! It is for them to obtain scholarship… and we are responsible for creating an environment for that scholarship–the challenging and gritty work of becoming brilliant enough to be excellent in any field–that is what we do. The product of that work is already shining back at us in the eyes of the many beautiful children gathered here, and in the eyes of the children we serve each day.
If and when we rally around schools' core beliefs as educators, like we are doing today, let us not forget that our paid public service is for the betterment, the preparation, and the propulsion of our students into a world that needs each and every one of them to bring their "A" game into a society plagued with problems waiting on these problem solvers. I know my place, as an educator, in this equation. Like you, I am a fundamental part of all solutions, and my children… our children… will be trained to enter into their greatness.
Encourage yourselves, and remember every day why we are still here.
Thank you.
