Tell a little bit about your current employment, family, and hobbies? What is your educational background? What qualifications do you have that would enhance your term as a school board member? What issues do you believe are at the forefront with regard to school board policies? If you are elected, what goals would you like to achieve.

Responses from Brittany Hilbert | Jeff Cochran | Steven Watterson

Brittany Hilbert

1. Tell a little bit about your current employment, family and hobbies?

My family and I have lived in Simpsonville for 12 years now, 7 in the district. My husband works for an automation engineering company and my 2 children attend Plain Elementary. I work in business banking at Pinnacle Financial Partners. When we’re not chauffeuring our children to swim practice and baseball we like to hike and cycle.

2. What is your educational background?

I have a BA in Sociology with a minor in Biology from the University of Georgia

3. What qualifications do you have that would enhance your term as a school board member?

I’ve been in business banking for over a decade, helping businesses in all stages of the business cycle achieve their financial goal, which means I have a good understanding of how to evaluate return on investment and ensure that we are using tax payer dollars effectively.

Additionally, my job has given me a unique perspective on what businesses are looking for in employees and has made me passionate about workforce development. Because of this, I’ve volunteered with many organizations to teach financial literacy and entrepreneurship to both kids and adults. This combination of experience makes me uniquely qualified to work with my fellow board members and others in the community to build a coalition to better all Greenville County Schools.

4. What issues do you believe are at the forefront with regard to school board policies?

There are a number of issues that are critically important for the District, but I recently read an article that COVID has undone a decade of progress in math and reading and SC fell 2 places to 46th in education. With Greenville Co. being an urban school district, we face not only geographical but socioeconomic challenges in education. When reviewing the district’s long term strategic plan, I noted that the correlation between schools with the highest number of students testing at the Meets or Exceeds level in math and reading has a direct relationship with that schools zones median income level. The board needs to stay focused on finding ways to address these learning gaps using evidence based practices.

5. If you are elected, what goals would you like to achieve?

Reading is such a critical piece of a child’s educational success and I would like to see continued expansion of our 4k programs and Summer Reading Camp so that we can ensure that all Greenville County students are reading at grade level by the 3rd grade. Achieving thismetric will allow teachers in higher grades to devote more time to developing the World Class Skills laid out in The Profile of a South Carolina Graduate like “critical thinking and problem solving” and “knowing how to learn”.

Jeff Cochran

I am currently retired after having taught in South Carolina public schools for 31 years.  The first 18 of those years I taught at Battery Creek High School in Beaufort County where I was also heavily involved in coaching.  The last 13 years I taught at Wade Hampton High School here in Greenville County.  God has blessed me with a wonderful wife and a wonderful son.  I enjoy reading, studying, and teaching the Bible.  I also enjoy sports (mostly watching as opposed to playing these days).

I received my undergraduate degree from what is now the University of Virginia's College at Wise.  I have a Master's Degree in Secondary Educational Leadership from Clemson University.

I deeply care about our children, and I deeply care about the future of our country.  I think that having been a public school teacher myself for 31 years gives me a lot of insight into many of the problems faced by our students, teachers, school administrators, and other school personnel.  I also think I have a head start on finding solutions to those problems.   Along with being a teacher I also coached several sports over the course of my first 18 years as an educator.  So I also have an understanding of and an appreciation for the value of students being involved with sports teams and other extracurricular activities that are part of a complete well rounded education.  

I believe that the social issues are the most important issues for the Board of Trustees to focus on in the next four years.  We should not be teaching sexual content to young children.  I believe there should be absolutely no place in our schools for pornographic books or other pornographic materials.  Biological males should use the boy's restroom, and biological females should use the girl's restroom.  Biological males should play boy's sports,  and biological females should play girl';s sports.  I also believe that Critical Race Theory has absolutely no place in our schools.  You don't end racism by teaching racism. 

One of the goals of our public schools should be to help unify our community and our nation.  You do not promote unity by constantly trying to divide people into different categories.  We need to make sure the laser focus of our public schools stays on providing high quality academics and teaching the life skills our students need to best prepare them for the future.

My first goal would be to stand strong on the issues I mentioned above.  Nothing is more important for our public schools in my view than maintaining the right focus and not devolving into places for carrying out anti God and anti American social engineering experiments.  Another one of my goals would be to increase the amount of autonomy for teachers.  It is important that we agree on what should be taught, and we should be very transparent about it.  However, after agreeing on the curriculum to be taught, we need to give teachers more freedom to decide for themselves the best way to teach the material to their students.  Far too often today teachers are treated like robots or like actors reading from a script instead of being allowed to make use of their God given abilities and creativity to best serve their students.  Some of my other very important goals would be to continue to do all we can to improve school safety, continue to be a leader in our state related to teacher salaries, and to promote an atmosphere of cooperation and partnership with parents as we educate their children.

Steven Watterson

My name is Steven Watterson and I presently work as an Education Associate for the South Carolina Department of Education in the Office of Technical Education and Student Transitional Services. I am responsible for these career clusters: Architecture and Construction, Government and Public Administration, Law and Public Safety, Corrections and Security which includes Fire Fighting and Manufacturing. 

My primary responsibilities include State Standards for each program, Textbook adoption, Teacher training and professional development, equipment evaluation and budgets for each school district that has these programs in their High Schools or Career Centers.  I also work with the Department of Corrections and Department of Juvenile Justice.  I am in my eleventh year with the SCDE and plan to retire next year. 

Prior this job I was an Associate Professor at Greenville Technical College teaching courses under the Mechatronics Program leading to a certificate, diploma or associate degree.  I came to Greenville Technical College after teaching Project Lead the Way courses for three years in the school district of Oconee County. I am a certified teacher in Electronics and continue to renew my certification. These opportunities came from my Thirty-one-year career as an Enlisted and Commissioned Engineering Officer in the United States Navy. I became extremely interested in Education when I was assigned as a Training Program Coordinator at the Chief of Naval Education in Pensacola Florida coordinating nine Naval Engineering Schools. 

I have degrees in Information Systems, World History, Masters in Secondary Education and a Marine Engineer equivalent from the US Navy. I graduated from the US Navy War College in Leadership. I am married to a wonderful lady, and we have five children of which four graduated from South Carolina schools with one graduating from a private school.  

My hobbies are golf, boating and bee keeping.

My qualifications that I believe would enhance the Greenville County School District as a Board Member would be my global experience and work in Education.  I lived in Japan over seven years and my wife and I home schooled our children which attended Japanese public school. I also attended school in Germany developing the Mechatronics programs used throughout the secondary and post-secondary institution in the State of South Carolina. I have served on the Greenville Technical Charter High School Board. I have previous experience in Teaching and Administration. Presently I serve on many boards throughout the state and nationally.

The number one goal is to revise the current District wide Strategic Plan. The current plan was developed for 2018-2023 school years and needs to be addressed. A large amount of Data must be reviewed to determine if the current plan accomplished the goals. ‘Inspired, Supported, and Prepared’ is a great vision but must be validated.  The pandemic was no friend to our students and society.

Goals are simple in providing our Students, Teachers and Administrators with the best resources to ensure our students receive the proper education to succeed in life. 

One thing I would like to see changed is allowing board members to ask questions of speakers during public board meetings after they have spoken for their 3 minutes. Current board members talk to a lot of people outside these meetings and even ones who have spoken which leads to frustration for both parties.  As an example, the State Board of Education members ask questions of speakers.  I do not know if this is possible, though open dialogue in my opinion is much better than one sided dialogue. I also know that people’s tempers can and do flare, however, with professional decorum this should be a minimum risk.