EXTRA CONTENT: Tennessee educator picked to be new Corbin High School Principal

New CHS Principal John Derek Faulconer spoke briefly to members of the Corbin High School Site Based Decision Making Council Monday shortly after being selected for the position.

Read Faulconer’s resumé by clicking here.

In a move that may have surprised many Monday, the Corbin High School Site Based Decision Making Council chose a Tennessee educator to serve as the school’s next Principal.

The six-member board voted unanimously Monday afternoon to hire 33-year-old John Derek Faulconer to replace outgoing principal Joyce Phillips. Phillips has served in the position for the last 15 years.

"Wow! What a journey this has been," Faulconer said it a brief statement following the meeting. "I want to be part of the best. You all have an absolutely wonderful high school and an absolutely wonderful community. My goal is to come up here and just be part of that."

Faulconer has served as principal of Lake City Elementary School in Anderson County, Tenn. since 2008. Prior to that, he was an assistant principal at the school, and an administrative intern at Lake City Middle School. From 2002 until 2007 he was a classroom teacher at both Dutch Valley Elementary and Lake City Middle School.

The council members that voted to hire Faulconer said his past success with turning around some low performing schools in Tennessee coupled with stellar references and good interviews.

"He constantly gave answers that just met and exceeded our criteria and standards," said Jimmy Cornn, co-chair of the Site Based Decision Making Council. "He is a big data, number-crunching, test-result kind of person who is looking at test results and trying to figure out how to implement ways to make them higher."

"He’s helped to bring some low-performing schools up in Tennessee and that really stood out to us," Cornn added. "We are continuing to be better and the best. We are at a level that we really want to push and go higher in Corbin. We feel like he is someone that can lead us to the next level."

Cornn is one of three Corbin High School teachers that serve on the council. The board is also composed of two parent representatives and Superintendent Ed McNeel.

Faulconer was among 14 candidates who applied for the job. Following a mandated three-hour training over proper protocol for the hiring process, the council culled seven of the applications, and from those selected four finalists to interview.

Cornn said each candidate for the job was given 30 minutes to prepare and present an oral presentation that required them to analyze testing data and construct a possible plan to improve results. Each also went through a one-hour interview.

Two candidates were chosen from the four finalists for a second interview. Cornn said Corbin High School Assistant Principal Randall Sawyers was one of the top two candidates.

"It was a very difficult decision between the two finalists," Cornn said. "We had two strong candidates. We felt like Mr. Faulconer fit all the criteria the best."

A new law that went into effect June 8 allowed the school system Superintendent to serve on the council as a voting member. He took over duties as chairman.

Board members said McNeel’s presence was welcomed. He was invited by members to sit in all meetings prior to June 8 and participated in the required training.

"I don’t think we could have done it without him," Lewis said. "This was very important to us. We didn’t want to feel like we were just doing due diligence. We all very much believed the process would get us the person we were looking for if we followed that process. Mr. McNeel was a big part of that."

McNeel said he felt it was important that Faulconer had experience with administering federal "Race to the Top" funds in Tennessee. The program, unveiled by U.S. President Barack Obama in mid-2009, set aside roughly $4 billion to reward states that raised academic standards while improving teacher quality and encouraging expansion of charter schools. McNeel said that the changes the Tennessee education system underwent are similar to some of the changes upcoming in Kentucky regarding student testing and teacher evaluation.

Faulconer said that evaluating teachers and "making sure we can evaluate teachers the way they need to be evaluated" would be one of his priorities as Corbin High School Principal.

Faulconer said he was impressed with the facilities at Corbin High School, including a $10 million expansion that has added modern instruction rooms and a new administrative section.

"This is like walking into a small community college. Just the technology that is going on is amazing; everything down to the science labs and chemistry labs. It is something I did not have the opportunity to have in high school," Faulconer said. "I think if we want our kids to be the best we have to give them the best."

Faulconer is a 2001 graduate of the University of Kentucky with a B.A. in Regular Education K-6 and a B.A. in Special Education K-12 with an emphasis in learning behavior and disorders. He received an M.A. in 2005 from Tennessee

Technological University in Instructional Leadership and Educational Administration.

Faulconer is married and has four children. He said that while his commute to Corbin High School is currently manageable at about an hour each way, he is not ruling out the possibility of moving to the community.