Mr. Faris Upholds the Gold Standard

Kevin Faris is the new Associate Principal at Woodford County High School. He worked at Elkhorn Middle school in Frankfort in the same position and also worked at Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School in Lexington as an English teacher. When asked about his family, he said, “I have been married for 10 wonderful years to another English teacher, Amber Faris, and we have two kids:  a 7-year-old daughter named Harper Lee and a 2 and a half-year-old son named Rhett.”

Education was not his first choice, and he didn’t know what he wanted to be when he graduated from Centre College. He moved to Lexington and waited on tables. ” Then I went into banking and, after a few years, was quite miserable.  I loved reading and writing so I went to graduate school at EKU to be an English teacher.  After teaching a few years, I was encouraged by my principal to pursue administration.  I was worried that I would miss that connection with students, but I have found that you can still forge those strong relationships, just in a different way,” said Faris.

Mr. Faris is still working out on his time-management, so he writes things down. “I should probably be more organized, mainly because I rely way too much on post-it notes around my desk.  I have started to journal this year in an effort to be more organized,” Faris said.

He loves the infectious positivity of Woodford County High School. “Positive, I am lucky to come into a school where a group of teacher leaders has spent so much time creating and developing a PBIS plan for WCHS.  By the time I joined, the foundation had been laid and I think what you are seeing now with our Best Opening Days Ever was a great example of the kind of culture and environment we would want in a school,” Faris said.

He loves his new job as Associate Principal. “I cannot believe how nice and helpful the students have been.  It has been great meeting them and getting to know them.”

His idea how to build the positive school is, he said, “Listen to each other.  You can be positive and give out positive reward forms, but eventually, you will run into problems. When that happens you need to listen and respect the person talking.  If we would just listen to each other, a lot of our problems would be solved.”

He said an encouraging saying for Woodford county is, “You can’t be tough alone.  That was from a book by Jay Bilas called “Toughness.” It stuck with me because sometimes I am guilty of trying to do too much or of not asking for help when I need it.  You can’t be tough alone, reminds that that, ‘While alone we can be smart, together we are brilliant,’ by Steven Anderson.” We are glad to have you here at WCHS.