Friday Focus

By: Steve M. Flores, PhD with Jenny Lacoste‐Caputo

Friday Focus is about connecting with the people you serve, regardless of the position you occupy. By sharing personal stories, the reader is able to identify with the author directly by understanding and connecting with the likes, dislikes, fears, questions, and understandings gleaned from a background that is portrayed in a weekly message shared with staff over the course of 104 Fridays. The author, as a career educator of thirty-eight years (from driving buses to becoming a paraprofessional, teacher's aide, coach, history teacher, assistant principal, principal, area superintendent, assistant superintendent, deputy superintendent, chief of staff and superintendent), is able to highlight the hopes and dreams that are found in everyday situations. The enlightening and positive messages give the reader the understanding that regardless of one's circumstances, the world is indeed a remarkable and magnificent place. Now more than ever, we need to all understand that our world is better when we are together. This book provides us with shared reflections that we can all understand.

About the Author

Community involvement for Steve M. Flores, PhD. centers around his career pathway, as he serves on numerous boards that benefit students and our future workforce. In addition, he loves to read and spend time with his family. Education has afforded him with the opportunity to share a lived experience for his wife and two sons much different from the one he experienced as a child. As a son to a 3rd- and 6th-grade-educated mother and father, along with his three brothers and two sisters, his parents taught them that education was the conduit to a better life. Their inspiration allowed Flores to receive a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2001. This achievement proved their notion that education was indeed a way out of an impoverished background. The family may have lacked in life's material things, but far more important is they were wealthy with love found in the household. Flores believes that educators are the world's best storytellers, thus he shares his with you!