Great on Their Behalf

airick journey crabill

School systems nationwide are struggling to excel as they lurch from crisis to crisis—teacher shortages, school shootings, high turnover rates, weak discipline systems, and more. These things can pull the focus of school boards away from why school systems exist: to educate students.

airick journey crabill has a track record of helping school systems improve student literacy, numeracy, and career- and college-readiness rates while simultaneously strengthening the school’s financial and operational standing. Great on Their Behalf is your practical guide to igniting the transformation of your school board and enabling it to create the conditions for improving what students know and are able to do.

Step by step, the exercises in this book inspire board members to adopt a student-outcomes-focused mindset as they reevaluate their impact on those they serve. It challenges them to explore effective ways to focus on what students need. Then, it provides the necessary knowledge and skills for school boards to empower their students for success.

Press & Praise

Donna Bahorich, Texas State Board of Education, former Board Chair

Anyone with a real heart to serve students well on a local school board will find this book compelling and propelling. It makes crystal clear why we have been blind to the need and asleep at the wheel in school district after school district across the country.

Margo Bellamy, Anchorage School District, Board President

AJ's commitment to working with school boards to embrace a student-outcome-focused governance framework is visionary, unwavering, and contagious! Without a doubt, 'Student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change.'

Michael Hinojosa, Dallas Independent School District, former Superintendent

Good things happen by design, not by accident. The principles and concepts espoused by Airick create systems that greatly increase positive student achievement outcomes.

Improving student outcomes is Airick Journey (AJ) Crabill’s focus. He serves as Conservator at DeSoto, Texas ISD. Under AJ’s guidance, the DeSoto district improved their F-rated performances in academics, finance, and governance to B ratings. He’s Education Faculty at the Leadership Institute of Nevada and National Director of Governance at the Council of the Great City Schools. He served as Deputy Commissioner at the Texas Education Agency and, as Board Chair of Kansas City Public Schools, spearheaded reforms that doubled the percentage of literate and numerate students. Crabill is a recipient of the Education Commission of the State’s James Bryant Conant Award.


More Lioncrest Work

View All Books