Frisco ISD Superintendent Jeremy Lyon said being an educator has been the most rewarding and profound experience since he began his career 30 years ago.

Lyon has been with the school district for two years, and an extension on his contract through 2018 was approved in June.

Lyon attended Texas A&M University to study biological sciences in the Wildlife and Fisheries Science program. He decided to become a teacher and began his career as a high school biology teacher and basketball coach in Gilmer, Texas.

“That first year working in public education was incredibly rewarding in terms of being able to make a difference in the lives of students,” Lyon said. “Education was very clearly a home for me, and it has been for the last 30 years of my career.”

In 1993 Lyon took on his first administrative duty as assistant principal at West Ridge Middle School in Eanes ISD near Austin.

During his seven years as an administrator he received a doctorate fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin in the Cooperative Superintendent program.

After receiving his Ph.D in 1999, he was offered a position as superintendent in Coos Bay, Oregon. Ten years later he returned to Texas with his family and became superintendent of Hays CISD in Kyle.

“I’ve enjoyed every minute working in public education, and I’ve simply grown in my appreciation for the profound impact that educators can have on the lives of young people.”

-Jeremy Lyon, Frisco ISD superintendent

In 2013, Lyon was selected as the FISD superintendent.

“I’ve enjoyed every minute working in public education, and I’ve simply grown in my appreciation for the profound impact that educators can have on the lives of young people,” Lyon said. “I think that it’s never been more important for our schools to be filled with people that share that passion to help young people in this very complicated world that we live in, in both getting an education and building character.”

Lyon has had the opportunity to work in small and large districts, and he said every community is unique.

“For us in Frisco it’s a lot about the explosive growth and trying to connect the foundational values of the school district when it was smaller [to] meeting the needs of students in a larger context,” Lyon said.

To accommodate that growth, the school district, along with more than 200 community members and district staff, built a five-year comprehensive plan called FISD By Design.

The FISD board of trustees approved the plan in June. Lyon said the district will start to implement the plan this school year.

The plan has several ideas and strategies, but there are three main strategies Lyon said he would like to tackle this school year.

The first is providing professional development for new educators.

“We have an entire set of strategies developed around making sure that employees that start with Frisco are getting the really, really highly structured, centered professional development that allows them to be the best educator they can be with our schools,” Lyon said. “What really counts is the relationship between the student and the teacher and so we’re providing professional development in a very meaningful way.”

The second strategy is expanding the Career and Technical Education Center as well as the district’s partnership with Collin College.

“What that looks like is looking at new programs that could be partnered between the college and the school district and also expanding dual-credit opportunities for students,” Lyon said.

The third strategy is addressing the needs of the diverse community in the district.

“We need to focus on the diversity of our own workforce and to make sure we’re hiring—to the best of our abilities—a workforce that best represents our community and provides opportunity for all people,” Lyon said.

He also said the district needs to increase cultural awareness of the children coming to FISD from throughout the world.

“So we need to work on our cultural awareness within our classrooms and our schools, but we also need to work on the diversity of our workforce to enhance the capacity of our school system,” he said.

In terms of being a superintendent, Lyon said there is no place he would rather be than FISD.

“I do take very seriously the incredible responsibility that comes with being in charge of Frisco ISD, and it really boils down to the integrity and trust of the people that you work with,” Lyon said. “So whatever role I can play making sure those values are being promoted within our organization, that’s what I try to do every day. Sometimes you miss, sometimes you get it right, but you’re always learning.”