{"id":4577,"date":"2016-06-13T17:20:01","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T21:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/06\/29\/q-a-with-new-union-county-schools-superintendent-bill-roach-92\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T21:08:22","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T02:08:22","slug":"q-a-with-new-union-county-schools-superintendent-bill-roach-92","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/q-a-with-new-union-county-schools-superintendent-bill-roach-92\/","title":{"rendered":"Q & A with new Union County Schools Superintendent Bill Roach \u201892"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. William \u201cBill\u201d F. Roach Jr. has been appointed the new superintendent of Union County Schools starting June 1, 2016. He\u2019ll also be teaching school finance as part of Furman\u2019s master\u2019s degree program in school leadership this summer. He currently serves as assistant superintendent of Pickens County Schools and formerly held principal positions at Greer Middle College Charter High School and Berea High School. He earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science from Furman in 1992, along with master\u2019s degree in administration in 1997 plus 30 hours in 1999. He also received an Ed.S. and doctorate from the University of South Carolina-Columbia.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Bill

Bill Roach ’92<\/p><\/div>\n

Q: What made you decide to pursue this position with Union County?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: My ultimate goal was to one day be a superintendent.\u00a0 When I saw the position was open in Union County I did some background checking and discovered that Union was a lot like my hometown in Georgia.\u00a0 I was intrigued by the similarities and felt like I could have a positive impact on the district and the community.<\/p>\n

Q: What are you excited about with your new position as superintendent?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I am a very humanistic leader and I am excited to get to know the people of Union County.\u00a0 People in the community, the employees of the district, the students, the parents.\u00a0 As I shared with the media after I was named,\u00a0 I firmly believe that together as a collective group we can lead Union County to being one of the best districts in the state.\u00a0 One of the quotes I keep posted on my wall is from B. Dodge and it says, \u201cNo problem is insurmountable. \u00a0With a little courage, teamwork and determination a person can overcome anything.\u201d\u00a0 My goal is to lead our team to great things.<\/p>\n

Q: How did your years at Furman prepare you for your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I have a lot of fond memories at Furman.\u00a0 I played football and the work ethic that I learned from my coaches and teammates is something that I have carried with me.\u00a0 In my four years at Furman we won a National Championship and three Conference Championships.\u00a0 That group of guys and our coaches were committed to being the best and it showed.\u00a0 I also learned a great deal outside the football realm while at Furman.\u00a0 Furman, even then, was diverse.\u00a0 I developed some great friendships with people who were different from me in many ways.\u00a0 I feel like that has helped me as an administrator in schools.\u00a0 I have worked at some diverse schools and I loved each group the same.\u00a0 I heard a quote one time that said, \u201cI love you too much to let you fail.\u201d\u00a0 I believe this is what education is all about, loving kids too much to allow them to fail.<\/p>\n

Q: What would you tell a student who is considering undergraduate\/graduate programs in education at Furman?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I really enjoyed Furman and have sent several students to Furman as a principal over the years.\u00a0 My advice for students who are interested in Furman is they need to be prepared to work hard.\u00a0 Furman is very challenging academically, but as my life quote says, \u201cHard work pays off!\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. William \u201cBill\u201d F. Roach Jr. has been appointed the new superintendent of Union County Schools starting June 1, 2016. He\u2019ll also be teaching school finance as part of Furman\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":4480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-graduate-studies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}