Edward Anderson always thought his dream of being an educator would lead him to working within the school system — and for a while, it did. But now, he’s working to improve that system from the outside as the executive director of OnTrack Greenville at United Way of Greenville County.
“As a principal, I was able to impact those 800 students and their families and those teachers, and in this role I’m able to impact the [entire] county,” says Anderson, who earned his bachelor’s degree in middle level education at the University of South Carolina in 2008. “Greenville County has 80,000 students — it’s the largest district in South Carolina. I get to impact systems that influence all those kids and directly target over 5,000 kids in concentrated areas of poverty.”
Anderson started his career as a middle school teacher. But before his fifth year teaching, he was asked by the district office to provide curriculum and instructional support to English language arts teachers as the district’s first Title I academic specialist. After two years in that position, he became the assistant principal, and later principal, of Tanglewood Middle School. He thrived in the role, but eventually began to feel constricted by it.
“After 12 years, I felt as though the boxes that were provided for me in the K-12 system had started to reach their load,” he says. “During the pandemic, I moved into this OnTrack Greenville position where I get to help principals, teachers, families and students in all of Greenville County — but really in the highest poverty areas — get the resources, intervention and support they need to not only graduate but be successful after graduation.”
Anderson and his team have developed pilot programs that have yielded noticeable improvements in students’ academic success, as well as their social and emotional well-being. In each of the schools they work with, a facilitator meets with the school counselor, teachers, administrators and students each week to assess what they need to focus on to improve the following week’s outcome.
“I really want to change the game for students and people in poverty. That has always been my goal. It shouldn’t be by happenstance or by luck that someone is able to achieve success. It should be by intentional structures in place that really support someone’s mobility and their ability to move beyond their circumstances.”
In its first five years of implementation, OnTrack Greenville has successfully piloted a school-based health initiative in three middle schools, leading to more than 2,800 student visits with 97 percent of students returning to class after being seen. Its partners have coordinated over 33,000 case management supports and individual interventions, including utility assistance, rental assistance, mental health referrals, mentor connections, academic behavior and attendance plans. OnTrack Greenville has also distributed over 15,000 books and organized a summer program that has helped over 1,600 rising sixth graders improve their reading and math proficiency in less than four weeks. It’s also helped schools improve students’ English language arts and mathematics performance by about 25 percent.
“OnTrack Greenville continues to bridge the gap between schools and communities,” Anderson says. “We’re investing in evidence-based interventions and using third-party evaluation to measure impact and provide recommendations to the district and community partners to move the needle for students.”
Anderson, who was born and raised in Greenville, can recall the exact moment he knew he wanted to work in education. His grandmother had passed away when he was in elementary school, and his family had fallen on hard times. During this period, it was his teachers who made him feel seen with their kindness and compassion.
“They were not letting me slip through the cracks — because it could have easily happened,” he says. “And now, as an educator, I know how that looks. I just remember saying, ‘I want to do the thing that makes kids feel like that.’ And from that moment I knew I wanted to go to USC, and I knew I wanted to be a teacher.”
Though the programs his team have piloted are successful, Anderson’s goal is for his impact to go deeper than programs. You can’t program your way out of systemic issues, he says, because programs can be temporary and contingent on funding and finding people to fill program roles. He wants to develop meaningful relationships and influence policy change.
“I really want to change the game for students and people in poverty. That has always been my goal,” he says. “It shouldn’t be by happenstance or by luck that someone is able to achieve success. It should be by intentional structures in place that really support someone’s mobility and their ability to move beyond their circumstances.”
