Leading schools with courage, intention, and honesty What can a deejay teach us about the classroom? What does a superintendent do besides decide when to close school for snow? What makes someone a great teacher or a great principal? In this collection of essays, Dr. Joe Clark answers these questions by offering a model for compassionate, principled, and student-centered school leadership. In the process, If the Dance Floor Is Empty, Change the Song offers leaders a handbook for placing kindness, community, and diversity at the heart of successful education. Full of humor and resilience, Clark's essays beam with as much range as they do insight. He dives right into issues like changing instructional standards, increased reliance on testing, and anxiety about social media in schools--and others--while providing collegial advice that new school leaders in particular will find indispensable. With an eye toward centering students, supporting teachers, and empowering communities, If the Dance Floor Is Empty, Change the Song never loses sight of the human needs and connections that ultimately drive learning. This is the type of read that can rejuvenate a veteran, or give new teachers tools to keep their morale and inspiration at their peak. The lessons you learn from this book can carry over throughout the year, even when you don't know if you can get through it. --Amber Teamann, principal of Whitt Elementary in Wylie ISD in Wylie, Texas Woven through these pages are stories of connection, told with the candor and vulnerability necessary for promoting personal and professional growth. There is something for everyone in this book! --Tamara Letter, MEd, instructional coach, technology integrator, and author of A Passion for Kindness It's been said that we never know the struggles that someone is going through, so we should treat them kindly always. In If the Dance Floor Is Empty, Change the Song, Joe Clark embraces his own vulnerability to share how he reclaimed his story after a traumatic childhood and used his life experiences--and his time as a DJ and camp director--to guide his work as a school leader. This book is an often humorous, sometimes melancholy look into what teaching and school leadership are all about. It's a tremendous read that I know you'll enjoy. --Thomas C. Murray, director of innovation at Future Ready Schools and author of Personal & Authentic

Isaac is a teenager who’s been unhappy most of his young life. When his father died tragically while time traveling through history, his only child, Isaac, inherited his property and his time machine. As Isaac quickly sold the property to acquire IPO stocks from the mid-1970s, suddenly, the young man became a multimillionaire in today’s timeline. The youth also inherited his father’s addictive personality. Isaac overindulged to the extreme, which led to a hedonistic lifestyle and tragic results. Isaac then decided to help people avoid misfortune. However, the pushback from the space-time continuum often led to deadly consequences. After many trials and errors, Isaac went after simpler time travels to find happiness for himself. With his machine, he searched through the ages to earn the love of a fine woman. Once he was a high school loser, but now with his time machine, there’s always time for a change.

The most distracting boss of all… For driven businessman Luke Savage success is the only option. So when gorgeous marketing intern Jess Sherwood waltzes into his office and casually informs him that his newly inherited vineyard has an image problem he's outraged! She's naive, overly ambitious, a know-it-all… And all Luke can do to stop her talking is kiss her senseless. Eight years later the vineyard needs a boost—and Luke needs a hip new marketing strategy to save it. Jess may drive him crazy but she's the right woman for the job. Their only problem is how to keep their minds on work and off that kiss!

A rattlesnake bite. A moment of panic. Everything changed in the blink of an eye. Nickie learns the hard way, not only do shapeshifters exist, but she is one. Now she’s learning to deal with increased speed, strength and healing and at the same time, thinking she's losing her mind because suddenly, she can hear things. To add to her challenge, she’s learning that people she thought she knew have secrets she never imagined. Can Nickie navigate all these changes alone or will help come from an unexpected ally?

They say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but Trey’s grandparents seem to be taking the long way around to a destination he cares nothing about—in a state he has no desire to see. Will Tucker has not been out of Oklahoma in over fifty years. Now he has planned a trip to California with his beautiful wife, Maggie, and his only grandson, Trey. Trey has a problem and even if Trey doesn’t know it, Will does. Can he fix it before the trip ends? Only time can tell and as each mile passes precious seconds are flying by.

A cop, a lawyer, and a costume designer walk into a bar--the beginning of a beautiful relationship? Or will their agreement be DOA? Raine Rivera will never see her name in lights as a costume designer, but she loves using fashion to flesh out characters. Finding a job after grad school has been a huge worry. When an offer comes from an unlikely source, she’s conflicted because it comes with strings attached, and she's always been a no-strings-attached kinda girl. Margaret Katz is a successful attorney, but there's one starring role she's had her eye on her entire life: mother. After countless setbacks, she'll do almost anything to make it happen--even sharing her husband? After all, he's always been willing to share her. Leonard Katz always knew he wanted to be a cop, but the job is a lot harder than he ever imagined. He and his lawyer wife blow off steam from their law and order jobs by practicing an alternative lifestyle. Now Leo has a wild and crazy idea...an idea that will either destroy three people's lives or fulfill all their dreams. Author's Note: This romance novel deals with the subjects of infertility, surrogacy, pregnancy and birth. Reader discretion is advised. The PolyAm Fam series chronicles a polycule's romantic adventures with humor, heat, and heart. Even if you're totally vanilla, you'll probably fall in love with a book boyfriend or girlfriend--maybe a dozen of them. As they say: the more, the merrier! Book 1: The Scottish Play (Molly & Lachlan's story, MFF Vee) Book 2: Break a Leg (Noah, Aris & Danielle's story, MMF Triad) Book 3: Stealing the Show (Raine, Maggie & Leo’s story, FFM Triad)

They're in this fight together Border patrol agent Desmond Jackson would gladly take a bullet for his partner. Instead, it's Detroit border patrol agent Sherri Lopez who ends up wounded in a drug raid…then blindsided by a shocking diagnosis. The woman Dez secretly loves is a warrior now in a fight for her life. Strong and independent, Sherri won't let anything defeat her—or let herself rely on Dez. Doesn't she realize how good they are together? All Dez knows is he can't lose her…or the friendship that's slowly evolving into something even more precious.

You see them in the corner at weddings, spinning the platters that matter, making the bride and groom happy, they are they DJ. There are many good 'How to' books on being a DJ. This is not one of them. This is the true story of a mobile wedding DJ from Northern Lower Michigan who started from scratch and is still scratching. I'M GETTING A BAD RECEPTION takes you down the rollicking road on how I became a DJ, the perils and pitfalls I encountered along the way as well as some interesting and humorous people and stories thrown in for good measure. The first section is how I got my act together and took it on the road. The second section takes you step by step from my experience at playing for the ceremony, all the way to the end of the night. No party animals were harmed in the making of this publication.

When two souls are torn apart by duty, can the hand of God bring them back to a happily ever after? Late Vietnam War era. Strapped for cash, Todd Jameson flirts with disaster. Caught robbing a liquor store to pay for his dad’s funeral and given the choice of jail or signing up for the military, he picks the best of two bad options and joins the army. But just as his fresh start reconnects him with a sense of honor and the friendship of a gracious woman, he’s deployed overseas into an unknown destiny. Sixteen-year-old Shaunna Chatman devotes every breath to caring for her sick mother. Working in a diner to make ends meet, the last thing on her agenda is to fall for a young soldier about to be sent into battle. But when he encourages her not to wait, she reluctantly moves on to wed another who’s there to pick up the pieces after she buries her beloved mom. Thrown into a whirlwind of circumstance, Todd flows in and out of the courageous girl's narrative wondering if their stories will ever fully entwine. And though Shaunna’s journey grants her a child even as personal tragedy strikes, her thoughts often turn to the boy who still fills her heart. Will their paths merge once more to bask in the glory of His love? Circles of Fate is a deeply woven inspirational women’s fiction novel. If you like believable heroes, roads to enlightenment, and tales of inner strength, then you’ll adore Pamela S Thibodeaux’s romantic saga. Buy Circles of Fate to walk in the light today!

Sara Le Menestrel explores the role of music in constructing, asserting, erasing, and negotiating differences based on the notions of race, ethnicity, class, and region. She discusses established notions and brings to light social stereotypes and hierarchies at work in the evolving French Louisiana music field. She also draws attention to the interactions between oppositions such as black and white, urban and rural, differentiation and creolization, and local and global. Le Menestrel emphasizes the importance of desegregating the understanding of French Louisiana music and situating it beyond ethnic or racial identifications, amplifying instead the importance of regional identity. Musical genealogy and categories currently in use rely on a racial construct that frames African and European lineage as an essential difference. Yet as the author samples music in the field and discovers ways music is actually practiced, she reveals how the insistence on origins continually interacts with an emphasis on cultural mixing and creative agency. This book finds French Louisiana musicians navigating between multiple identifications, musical styles, and legacies while market forces, outsiders' interest, and geographical mobility also contribute to shape musicians' career strategies and artistic choices. The book also demonstrates the decisive role of non-natives' enthusiasm and mobility in the validation, evolution, and reconfiguration of French Louisiana music. Finally, the distinctiveness of South Louisiana from the rest of the country appears to be both nurtured and endured by locals, revealing how political domination and regionalism intertwine.