Biography

I was born in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, the fifth of six children of Dr. C. Jeddy LeVar and Karma Hunstman LeVar. My dad was the department chair for the social sciences department at Henderson State University and my mother was a stay at home mom.

I attended all my public schooling in Arkadelphia and graduated from Arkadelphia High School in 1992. While there, I was active in many groups. I was the clerk for my local church. I was involved in student government. I was the section leader for the band percussion section. I participated in All-Region choir and band and All-State band every year of high school. My junior and senior years of high school, I was on the Clark County Red Cross Board of Directors and organized a high school Red Cross club. My senior year, I was awarded National Merit Scholar Finalist.

After high school, I attended Brigham Young University. I was selected for the top band my freshman year of college, even though I was not a music major at the time. I also participated in the BYU Student Service Association (the student government). I organized the Club Week and was recognized as the outstanding event of the year.

After my freshman year, I spent two years in Canada as a missionary for my church. After two months, I was put into a leadership role over far more experienced missionaries and stayed in different leadership roles throughout my service, training multiple new missionaries.

I returned to BYU and became a music major. While at BYU, I performed in every orchestra and ensemble on campus. I toured the East and West coasts of the United States and Central and Eastern Europe. I also performed in the BYU Men’s Chorus and wrote percussion accompaniments to many pieces. I wrote percussion for all auditioned choirs while at BYU and since leaving. I received multiple performance scholarships and was even offered a scholarship in the summer just to lead the percussion in one ensemble when I was not scheduled to attend school.

At BYU, I was in charge of the maintenance and purchase of all percussion equipment for the campus. I left that job to work in the Computer Music Lab. Within the year, I moved into the position of the director of the computer music lab, maintaining a composition lab and an organ training lab. During that time, I was approached to work at Saffire Corporation, an international video game developer. The position was a new creation of an audio designer/scriptor.

At Saffire, I quickly moved into leadership positions overseeing all the scriptors on the team I was working with. I helped create the training manual for our scripting language and trained all new scriptors for the company. I also created the audio placement tool used in creating the games. After my promotion to lead scriptor, I moved into a company level position of Audio Technology Director. I worked directly under the Audio Director and supervised locations in American Fork, UT and St. George, UT. Within a few months, I became the Audio Director for the company, adding a division in Spain to my supervisory duties. I also served on the Game Development team which approved all new ideas for in-house video game productions. I left Saffire in 2001 to return to school and complete my bachelors degree in music education.

While at Saffire, and during my early years at BYU, I taught multiple marching drum lines across the state. Each of them earning top honors at festivals. I also helped to create the marching band for Provo High School. The new band director, the third I worked with, asked me to be his assistant marching band director and help create the program after a 25 year hiatus. I also taught at Provo College as an adjunct faculty. I taught Web Design and Computer Graphics courses.

In 2001, I married Ginni Bingham from Oklahoma. Ginni is an artist and actively sells her paintings, prints, and pendants at arts and crafts shows in numerous states and online at www.SwashOfColor.com. In addition, she is an elementary school ark teacher. We have three lovely children; a 15 year-old, a 13 year old, and an nine year old.

Our oldest has picked up her mother’s artistic abilities and loves to draw and paint pictures. She also plays French Horn in the band. In addition, she writes and has just started poetry. She was in a virtual poetry in motion class this summer and performed at an open mic night at The House of Art in North Little Rock at the request of one of her instructors from the camp.

Our middle is a miniature me. He is quite active and enjoys using his hands to make and build things; whether it is with LEGOs, clay or 2″x4″ blocks that his uncle made for us years ago. He has also started working on his YouTube Channel.

Our youngest is about as energetic as you can find. She loves meeting people and making friends. She is also inheriting her mother’s artistic ability and loves to draw.

One thing we like to do as a family is get a booth at a community event or activity. Ginni and our oldest do amazing face painting designs. Our middle child has learned how to twist balloons and our youngest makes and sells her own design of slime. It gives us a good excuse to get out to other areas and vacation as a family.

When I returned to BYU, I began working at Bert Murdock Music as the percussion specialist. During that time, I revamped and refocused the percussion area, making BMM a place for band directors around the state to look at orchestral percussion and not just drumsets. I taught workshops and trainings around the state and organized a drum circle for children at the store. When I left the store to become a music teacher, Bert offered me a significant promotion into a leadership role over the travelling representatives, all of whom had more experience at the store. I left the store to begin teaching at Timpanogos High School in Orem, UT.

My first year at Timpanogos, I conducting a technology training for all 80+ faculty at the request of the principal and the technology support representative for the school. At the end of the year, I was approached to represent the faculty as the build representative for the local education association and defeated my opponent. I was re-elected after my first term. One year into that term, I filled a vacancy on the executive board of the association and was reelected the following year.

My second year at Timpanogos, I created the Timpanogos Steel Drum Band and the History of Rock-n-Roll class. The Rock class was an enhancement of the General Music class, and the enrollment shot from 10 to 45 with a waiting list each semester. I also began the annual “Jazz Dinner-Dance,” which involved the Pro-Start, Interior Design, Commercial Art, Ballroom Dance classes and the Jazz and Steel Drum Bands and a few vocal students.

My third year at Timpanogos, I created a showcase concert at the beginning of the year for our top performing arts students. That year, our school district set aside time each week for teachers to collaborate as part of the process of developing Professional Learning Communities. At the end of that year, I created the first ever marching band for Timpanogos with the help of my department.

My fourth year at Timpanogos, the marching band I had just started months earlier went on to receive awards at every competition we competed in. As a result of the marching band and other accomplishments, three of my colleagues independent of, and unknown to, each other nominated me for the Utah Educators Association “Excellence in Education” Award, and I was selected as one of ten recipients in the state. At the end of that year, I was one of ten faculty sent to the Rick Stiggins workshop on formative assessment held in Portland Oregon.

During my fifth year, the ten of us who attended the workshop/training organized all professional development for the faculty. I also began the process of applying to the Brigham Young University Leadership Preparation Program, at the suggestion of my principal and all three assistant principals. I was accepted in January and began classes for my masters in April 2008. I also received a scholarship covering part of my tuition.

The BYU Leadership Preparation Program was a full-time masters program and full-time internship program. I served as a full-time assistant principal at three different schools; Spanish Fork High School, Lakeridge Junior High School and Meadow Elementary School. I was at each school for three months. I would spend Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at the school working as an assistant principal. On Wednesdays, we would meet at BYU for our masters classes. Each of those schools was in a different stage in the process of developing Professional Learning Communities. Lakeridge Junior High had a fully functional PLC which is featured in the DuFour book “Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap: Whatever It Takes,” and the principal is quoted in the second edition of the DuFour book “Learning By Doing.”

When I finished my masters program, I began working at Grand County High School in Moab Utah as the associate principal. During my time at GCHS, I accomplished the following items:
Revised schedule to allow departments time to discuss and collaborate on students, programs and issues weekly without increasing contract time and only losing 3 minutes of instruction time per class per week.
Empowered the Student Government to enact changes in the school towards a more responsive administration. Facilitated the implementation of student suggestions which resulted in a sense of ownership and increased school pride.
Awarded and administered Professional Learning Communities grant to facilitate changes in the school and community through organized discussions between administrators, teachers and parents.
Created a “Skills for Success” class which targeted incoming freshmen and current sophomores who failed one or more classes their previous school year, with the ultimate goal being to give all incoming freshman the tools ad support they need to achieve high levels of performance at the high school.
Organized district-wide emergency preparedness drill in conjunction with USOE and Risk Management. The full-day drills involved school faculty, local emergency preparedness agencies (sheriff, police, EMS, hospital, etc.), Utah County SWAT, and agencies from neighboring counties. District Administrators from The Canyons School District observed our drill as a model for their future drill.
In addition to those items, I was a member of the District Nutrition Committee, Technology Committee, Clinical Safety Committee, Evaluation Committee and I co-chaired the District Discipline Committee. I am also an active member of the Moab Community Action Coalition which reviews school and community data regarding risk and protective factors for our youth. We have been awarded numerous grants to fund out programs.

At the end of the 2011-2012 school year, I was approached separately by three members of the high school staff requesting that I consider running for the Grand Education Association co-president position. I spoke with the other members of the association in attendance at the voting meeting explaining my concern for the association and my willingness to run for the position as long as it remained a co-president with a teacher as the co-president. The members elected me to the position for the 2012-2013 school year. During my time, we created a working budget with greater oversight for the Executive Board, organized a training in Interest-Based Bargaining with the School Board, organized an extensive training program for association representatives and engaged in multiple morale building/teacher recognition events along with our classified employees association.

In the summer of 2013, I returned to Arkansas as the Math Program Administrator for the Pulaski County Special School District. I led the district implementation of the Mathematics Design Collaborative and received trainer of the trainer certification from the Southern Regional Education Board at their summer conference where I presented on the process and progress at PCSSD.

The summer of 2014, I was promoted to be the interim principal at Northwood Middle School. Because of a district split, the school was only open one more year. During that year, we increased the school report card grade from an F to a C. We also received the “Beating the Odds” award for 7th grade ELA.

The summer of 2015, I was hired as the principal of Joe T. Robinson Middle School, still in PCSSD. During my tenure there, we raised the school grade from a C to a B, increased the school enrollment by 22%, built a new building, decreased the retention percentages from 13% down to 1-2% and were selected to be one of only 11 schools and districts in Cohort 1 of the ADE supported PLCs at Work Pilot.

The summer of 2019, I transitioned into a dual role at PCSSD. I took on the position of 504 coordinator for the district. This provided me with more district level administrative experience and increased my knowledge and understanding of the 504 process. I provided support and training to the building coordinators in all 25 schools and served as the 504 grievance officer. In addition to my role at the district level, I gained some much needed elementary level experience. I had the privilege of serving as the assistant principal at Daisy Bates Elementary School. Prior to this, my elementary knowledge and experience was very limited. This year, I had the honor of working with an administrator who had come back from retirement the year prior to provide leadership and a vision to Daisy Bates. I gleaned much knowledge of the elementary world while working with her. I also received training in Positive Behavior Intervention and Support (PBIS), Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID), and Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (R.I.S.E.). R.I.S.E. is a phonics based instructional protocol that is utilized throughout Arkansas. I am a certified R.I.S.E. Assessor.

When I left the Pulaski County Special School District, I began working as a Public School Program Advisor for the Equity Assistance Center. We provide support, assistance and training for all of the school districts and open enrollment charter schools in the state for Title IX, Title VI, Section 504, Minority Recruitment, Discipline Policies and Anti-Bullying.

During my time, we have significantly increased our training programs. In my first year there, I presented ten trainings and co-presented nearly 20 additional trainings on Title IX, Section 504 and Minority Teacher and Administrator Recruitment. With the new Title IX regulations from August 2019, we have focused much of our trainings on helping districts get up to date on the requirements and are regularly called for district level trainings. In addition, my second month, we hosted our first ever state-wide virtual trainings on the new regulations which resulted in two sessions and over 400 attendees. In the fall of 2021, I surveyed the superintendents, Title IX coordinators, Section 504 coordinators and Equity coordinators regarding training topics they would attend. We had over 400 responses and created a month-long series of once a week trainings ranging from 2 hours to half day. Each session had hundreds of participants statewide.

As part of that training, we also rolled out a statewide Microsoft Team and channels for all the different coordinators we support. I created the structure and maintain the channels. We have resources available for all school districts there as well as a place for districts to share their resources with each other and ask and answer questions regarding their specific tasks. I have also created numerous interactive tools using Google spreadsheets for our office and provided support and training for other offices in the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.