Whether you are a brand-new principal or an experienced leader in a new job, Lead From the Start will help you succeed in your role. Written by Tommy Reddicks and Tina Merriweather Seymour--veteran school leaders with decades of firsthand experience--this book details how to quickly develop best practices and systems that ensure better outcomes for your students, staff, and school. Numerous personal accounts, opportunities for reflection, and discussion questions are included throughout the resource. Use this resource to improve your leadership skills and gain firsthand knowledge from educators like you: Develop an understanding of educational leadership as a skill that can be cultivated and improved. - Study the greatest challenges that leaders face in the first few years in a new position and why success in these years is necessary for continued success. - Study experience-backed lessons, strategies, and best practices that will improve your leadership skills and expand your management styles. - Develop your own system of leadership that will empower you to overcome your school's unique challenges and improve family and community engagement. Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Understand the Setting Chapter 2: Prepare for Opening Day Chapter 3: Build Educational Relationships Chapter 4: Manage the Operation Chapter 5: Codify Schoolwide Behavior Management Chapter 6: Develop Academic Systems Chapter 7: Manage Your Staff Chapter 8: Administer Your Budget Epilogue Appendix: Reproducibles References and Resources Index "The performance of the principal is critical to school improvement, yet the challenges are mammoth and often overwhelming for even the best-equipped professional. This book provides one of the most thorough and comprehensive guides to principal success that I have ever read. I would highly recommend this book to any principal, experienced or novice." ----Anthony Muhammad, educational consultant and author "We have long understood the impact of highly effective teachers on student success. Reddicks and Merriweather Seymour not only validate the same impact from a highly effective principal but are determined to end the revolving door in school leadership through systems and strategies for success in the first several years. This book is a must-read for every aspiring principal, sitting principal, and those who supervise and support them." ----Jeffrey K. Butts, superintendent, Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township, Indianapolis, Indiana " Lead From the Start should be a required textbook in every educational leadership program in the country. Through important leadership stories and research-based strategies, the authors have developed a playbook for school leaders that outlines best practices and systems to accelerate achievement." ----Deb Lecklider, professor and director, Experiential Program for Preparing School Principals, Butler University Tommy Reddicks is the CEO of Paramount Schools of Excellence in Indianapolis, Indiana. He started Paramount Brookside in 2010 in the Eastside neighborhood, and now oversees a growing network of schools in the same urban area. Reddicks is a former assistant principal at Knowledge Quest Academy in Milliken, Colorado, and served as a curriculum consultant and school music teacher in public, private, and charter schools between 1995 and 2008. Tommy is a past president of the Indiana Curriculum and Instruction Association and past president of the Near Eastside Community Organization (NESCO) in Indianapolis. He is a member of the Equity Coalition for the National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools. He has been a featured keynote speaker and trainer in the field of school health, piloting the Paramount Health Data Project since 2012. In 2014, Tommy published The Insane Book of Riddles, Codes, and Secret Math , a collaborative effort with his daughter Madeline, featuring 200 original riddles. In 2017, Tommy was featured on the education news website The 74 as one of the emerging leaders reinventing America's schools. That same year, Paramount Schools were awarded five-star status by the State of Indiana. In 2018, his flagship K-8 school, Paramount Brookside, was awarded the National Blue-Ribbon Award. Tommy has also composed and released two musical albums, Time and Space and A New Dimension. Tommy graduated from the University of Wyoming with a bachelor's and a master's in music education. He later received his administrative licensure from the University of Phoenix.