“I love Artesia and the importance the community places on the schools and the students,” explained the assistant superintendent, who completed the “Principal's Pursuing Excellence” program through the Public Education Department in 2015.

As the director of Title I and Bilingual programs, he works with fellow ENMU graduate, assistant superintendent John Ross Null, to coordinate school curricula. He is also in charge of student testing in the schools.

His favorite part of the position is “the students. I am in classrooms most days. I get to be around students, watching them learn and discover.”

The advent of the Common Core State Standards and its impact on curricula has been the most challenging part of his position.

“Schools experience constant change now,” he explained. “Legislated accountability creates an urgency to change and often these changes occur so quickly that we don't even know if the last thing worked.

“We are learning to use these accountability tools to positively influence what and how we teach. This is a positive thing and our students will be better prepared because of it.”

He said that teachers get a “bad rap. This is a tough career to tackle. I know this: Teachers work harder now than they have ever worked.

“They spend more hours looking at data to inform their teaching, prepare their lessons, and reflect and evaluate what happened during those lessons.

“It is a very challenging job--and I still believe it is one of the most important.”

He began his teaching career as a Title I Reading teacher. He taught English and coached at the middle school, junior high and high school, before becoming the junior high assistant principal.

“I wanted to be a teacher when I was in elementary school. This continued through the upper grades,” he explained. “I always felt like teachers had the best lives--constant connection with kids, getting to make a difference in others' lives and summers off.

“Those summers are nice--but they are earned!”

In 2005, he became principal at Yeso Elementary School. He took over his current position in July 2015.

Mr. Parker attended ENMU from 1987-1990, earning a bachelor’s in elementary education. He graduated with a master’s in education administration in 1997.

He chose Eastern because of its “reputation of being a close-knit and personal atmosphere. I found that to be true. I made life-time friends with students, faculty and staff.

“I never felt like a number being herded through the process.”

He participated in ASENMU and worked in the Sports Information department.

“ENMU's education department had a great bunch of professors who were passionate teachers. They instilled a sense of urgency that we had a great mission to complete,” he said.

“They afforded us the opportunity to learn how to adapt to an ever-changing field, and they followed up with me to keep me accountable to the cause.”

His wife, Susie, is the fine arts chairperson with the Artesia Public Schools. She also is the choir teacher at Artesia High and Artesia Junior High. They have two children: Madison, a “beautiful and smart seventh-grade student at Artesia Intermediate School” and Jackson, a “handsome and intelligent third grader at Yeso Elementary in Artesia.”

Mr. Parker’s career goal is to “retire someday. It's hard to do that when you have a seventh-grade girl and a third-grade boy.

“I also want to encourage young people to enter into education. With all the negative publicity it gets, it is still in the top three most important jobs.”

His hobbies include traveling the country in his mother-in-law's RV, “spending time with the best family God could ever give me,” being an active member and Sunday school teacher at Faith Baptist Church in Artesia and playing keyboard in the church band.