Meet Coach Doug Rawlins.

The toughest assignments were the ones he was hired for.

Doug Rawlins started as a science teacher and football coach in Woodward, Oklahoma, in 1987, where he helped turn a struggling football program into a winning one, then did the same in Dumas, Texas, while teaching junior high science. He could take an opponent's film apart and build a game plan around his players' strengths. He would run every campus he ever led the same way.

He moved into administration in 2001, joining administrative teams charged with lifting academically challenged campuses, and helped turn two of them around in five years as an assistant principal before becoming a principal in 2006. He has been a principal for 20 years. From there the pattern held for the rest of his career: River Road, Panhandle, Claude, Stratford. Each time, he was brought to a campus facing real challenges, and each time he found good people and good things already happening that simply needed focus. At Panhandle his elementary school earned a National Blue Ribbon nomination and ranked in the top 10% of Texas elementary schools. At Claude, the state had projected a D for the campus on its A-through-F ratings, the letter grades Texas gives every public school, mostly from state test results. In one year Claude earned a B, with the same staff and the same teachers, and Claude became a Texas Honor Roll School two years running. The change lasted: in 2022, Claude School was named a National Blue Ribbon School. At Stratford, as assistant superintendent and principal of Mary Allen Elementary, he moved the campus out of Improvement Required status during the pandemic. Across those years his campuses earned 17 TEA distinctions in six seasons, six consecutive years of Met Standard, and he was named Region 16 TEPSAN of the Year.

Every leader I have ever known started on an island, in the dark. I had nobody to counsel with, so I learned to find the next step and take it. Now I get to be the one who walked out ahead of you.

What he learned in those buildings became Flashlight Leadership. Engagement programs, instructional frameworks, and data systems are all widgets; useful, but not the thing. The thing is people. Big companies, big organizations, and high-performing schools are built not by turnover or by a new principal, but by helping each person find a better focus: why they are here, what their strength is, and what the short list of their role requires. Then somebody has to walk with them while they work it. That is the job.

Coach holds a Master of Education in Administration from West Texas A&M and a B.S. in Physical Education from Northwestern Oklahoma State, with superintendent and principal certifications in both Texas and Oklahoma. He is a fully certified trainer with the Center for Teacher Effectiveness, and has trained in NWEA MAP, Crucial Conversations, Lead4Ward, DISC personality profiles, and the John Maxwell leadership seminars. He has trained educators and spoken to doctoral programs on reading school data at the University of North Texas, Texas Woman's University, and Texas A&M.

His latest assignment took him to Midland Christian School in Midland, Texas, a school that wanted to push for academic excellence after COVID and a breakdown in its administration, when no one was sure the turnaround would happen. Before, the school's top ACT scores were a 29 and a 30. Now students are scoring above 30 on the ACT and over 1400 on the SAT, and those numbers continue to climb. Students have earned merit scholarships, and graduates are heading to the University of Texas.

He has trained educators throughout the United States. He and his family now live in Midland, where he has taken academic excellence to the Permian Basin.