About Us – ELS – Solutions that work

Senior Management

Paul Shelly, CEO

Paul has 15 years of experience in the public schools, including nine years as a school administrator. During that time he served at the elementary, middle, and high school levels of administration and was selected as the Tupelo Public School District’s “Administrator of the Year.” He has been with ELS on a full-time basis since 2004.

Kevin Baer, CTO

Kevin has worked as an IT Professional in a variety of industries since the early 1990s. He oversees all IT aspects of the company including our hosting platforms, database management and security, and software development. He joined the company on a full-time basis in 2006.

All-Star Employees

We have a great staff of Education and IT industry professionals committed to making ELS the best it can be. They are the ones that make it all possible!

Our History

Founded in 2003 by Paul Shelly, a former educator and administrator, and Kevin Baer, a software developer, Educational Leadership Solutions (ELS) began as a passion project to develop technology solutions that would simplify the work of educators and maximize the use of data.
Starting with a lesson planning software solution called EZ Lesson Planner, Paul and Kevin listened to the needs of administrators and developed additional software applications, such as a data warehouse and a software solution for RTI management.
By 2006, Paul and Kevin were both working full-time to support the continued growth of ELS. To meet the evolving needs of schools, ELS developed additional software solutions designed to enable educators to collect and analyze data more efficiently.
In 2010, ELS began creating benchmark assessments to provide data insights to help educators prepare students for state assessments.
In 2020, ELS launched Pathways to Proficiency, an innovative student assessment application that provides data insights to inform instruction and offers instructional support to correct student misconceptions.
In 2022, ELS introduced Pathfinder, which expands the capabilities of the data warehouse software formerly known as EZ Test Tracker. Today, ELS remains committed to creating technology solutions that reduce educator workload and increase educator effectiveness.

Our Partners

We believe that easy-to-use technology tools can help educators more effectively and efficiently manage and analyze the ever-increasing quantities of student and teacher data. This data holds a key to student success. We also believe that to be effective in schools, technology tools must be streamlined, user-friendly, and easily implemented. All of our applications are designed with this philosophy in mind.