My face hurts

My face hurts.  I haven't stopped grinning since the day I became a part of Harrisburg School district.

Hi - My name is Kevin Lein, the luckiest principal ever.  A fantastic facility, super students, spectacular staff and a community of diversity and good intent.  Serving you will be a sincere pleasure.

Just a little background and a small amount of philosophy as introduction.

Karter and Kennedy Lein, and my wife Amy are my priority always.  As with all of you, family is first.  I am a member of the Holy Spirit Catholic church as faith also is, and has been a defining part of my life.  Friends, family and faith seem to permeate this community and in all of your warm welcomes these past few weeks, that has been a common theme.

The past two years, I have been the middle, high school and Millbrook Colony School principal at Hanson School District in Alexandria, SD.  I was assistant basketball coach, school newspaper copy editor, golf coach and taught a sixth grade class.  I lived in Emery, SD and those two communities were tremendous supporters of our family and the relationships formed were very difficult to leave.  The past two years were easily the best of my life.  I owe much to every single one of the individuals in those communities for this present opportunity at Harrisburg.

Previous to our tenure in Hanson, we lived in Omaha where I served as athletic director/basketball coach/sports information director at College of Saint Mary.  Prior to that our family lived in Mitchell for 16 years.  At various times, some times simultaneously, I worked as:  sixth grade teacher, tennis coach, 8th grade basketball coach, assistant professor of education, education department chair, graduate program director, assistant men's basketball coach, head women's softball coach, head women's basketball coach, and division chair for Mitchell Public Schools and Dakota Wesleyan.  I was privilege to be elected school board member and president of our local teachers' organization and chair of faculty relations.  One stop before that I was chair of the education department, assistant professor, and head women's softball and basketball at Mount Marty College.  While there I was a sometimes sports editor and sometimes sports writer for the Yankton Press & Dakotan.   After leaving college I was a graduate assistant, sports reporter, DeVry Institute admissions counselor and played semi-professional basketball briefly in the Netherlands.

I graduated from Hampton High(Iowa) School and attended Claremore Junior College(now Rogers State, Oklahoma), Mount Marty College, South Dakota State and the University of South Dakota.  I have two bachelor's degrees and a master's degree and will hopefully finish my doctorate in education from College of Saint Mary this winter.

Enough about the personal stuff....it is imperative that we continue on the good and solid path Mrs. Kristine Alcon set for our high school.  These are very big shoes to fill.  Mrs. Alcon was the driving force of this facility and more importantly the people and the environment of Harrisburg High.  Mrs. Alcon has left this district with an energy and momentum that will carry us on to a bright future.  Her vision and tenacity and intelligence will be very difficult to match.  She has left us all in good stead and the dreams she related for this place must be realized.  She deserves at least that for her labor.

Our focus, in this world of tumult and challenge, Harrisburg students will enter....what shall it be?  Educators bandy terms about....21st Century Skills...Career integration....Differentiated learners....and a host of cryptic terminology that has its root in the variability of the profession and the effort to design and simplify what it is we do.  But that is a futile attempt and a waste of time.  This profession is messy, without end and difficult to capture or contain.  Just when something becomes tried and true, a societal influence will change entirely not only the rules, but the entire game.

Many in the profession will tell you that an educational reform is cyclical, in that, sooner or later it will return with another name and another package.  That is true and actually the way it should be.  Although we try to be proactive, we are a reactive bunch - trying to please the thousands of constituents and direct consumers who have a personal stake in all we do.  So we keep trying and re-trying and most of reform is successful if it matches goals and is intentionally relevant to the time and circumstance.  Our main difficulty is the measurement of the work.  In reality, the fruits of this labor are not realized until a student has entered their "real" life.  The success of each individual we touch much later in life is the only certain measure of our success.  And even then, how can we be sure that our reach and work led to that success or failure?  We have no product to hold and examine.  We have no tangible result.  We only can measure indicators that seem to lead to later lives of fulfillment.  Yet the degree to which we changed these lives is impossible to detect.

So - what do we do?  There is empirical data that can give us hope in our quest.  If we gear students with certain tools - we will ensure success for them in any venture.  And, at the same time, if we pay significant attention and use our experience to challenge them to habitually challenge themselves by setting expectations just out of reach, we can have some solace in our try.

The tool that umbrellas all others is independent decision-making.  All others are only subsets of this one overriding success-maker.  Every strategy we employ, every curriculum we select, every interaction we propose - should have as its justification students practicing the skill of making the right choices.  In all things that we pursue, the ability to gain the proper depth of truth and act on it in the proper way is all encompassing.  We can give students no greater gift than the life-long ability to do the right thing with logical rationale.

That eclipsing tool is underpinned by several other devices that will lead to a life spent well.  We can stimulate students to become curious about their world in science, we can instill civic responsibility in social studies, we can certify communication skills in English, we can improve problem-solving skills in mathematics, we can inculcate the guilt of health for all and instill appreciation for the aesthetics of the arts.  And when we do all of those things, our students take the last walk across the stage, confident to face anything, undertake any high aim, survive any struggle.

Those things:  to be curious about the world, to be citizens, be competent communicators, to be problem-solvers, to maintain healthy lifestyle and appreciate the form and aesthetics of the world - all developmental traits that can lead to independent decision-makers.

This is what we can do...what we must do...what we will do.

I hope you will stay in touch, comment or question whenever you can.  This office will only thrive on the information you provide, the needs and desires you express.   Please know I am here to serve you and will do so at every juncture with your sons' and daughters' best interests always.

And...I will try to stop this silly grin...it is my constant companion...but still hurts...and I doubt it will ever go away.

Kevin

Events - upcoming at Harrisburg High School

August 20 - B/G soccer - 5:30 - Home
August 21 - B/G soccer - 10:00 AM - Home

August  23 - Staff In-Service - all staff 8:00 AM
                     High School Staff - 11:45 - Little Theater
                     Open House - 6-7:30 - All teachers will be available in their classrooms
                     6:30 - Algebra students meet with Mr. Keppen
                     6:30 - Board Meeting - Liberty Library

August 25 - First Day of School!!!!!!!  Yeah - School begins at high school - 8:05

August 27 - Football at Hartford - 7:00 PM

August 28 - Boys soccer - home - 2:00 PM

August 31 - Volleyball - home - 6:30 PM