Welcome to Justin Bathon's Homepage.

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I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky College of Education in the Department of Educational Leadership Studies. At UK I teach the school law courses to both graduate students seeking to become principals and superintendents as well as undergraduate preservice teachers. More about the courses I teach can be found elsewhere on this site.  

I specialize in educational law because I remain both a teacher and a lawyer. My undergraduate degree is in English and I taught at a public high school in Southern Illinois before going to law school at Southern Illinois University and passing the bar in Illinois. Even before law school I had committed myself to working with educational institutions on legal matters, but while at law school I developed a bigger interest in educational policy. This eventually led me to work with the Education Commission of the States and to enroll in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University where I received my Ph.D. under the direction of Martha McCarthy. 

From the beginning of my educational career, I have been interested in educational leadership. While I was a teacher I was fascinated by this administrative role and the importance it had over the direction of the school I was teaching at. While at SIU getting the law degree, I enrolled in the principal preparation program and spent a great deal of time with beginning and experienced educational leaders. Also at IU, I was privileged to spend a great deal of time interacting with these leaders and their preparation program. In 2005, I joined a project sponsored by the Indiana Department of Education and the Wallace Foundation to do an in-depth investigation into educational leadership preparation programs in Indiana. This led to my ongoing involvement with the UCEA Taskforce on Evaluating Educational Leadership Preparation and my involvement at both the state and national levels in the discussion surrounding the preparation of educational leaders.

More information about my interests and publications in educational law, educational policy, and educational leadership preparation can be found in the navigation menu to the left.