Assistant Principal, Phelps High School

Assistant Principal Caron Smith is in her seventh year as the assistant principal at Phelps High School. In her role, she has helped to foster a caring community of learners who engage each day with rigorous curricula that helps prepare them for college, career, and life. She also supports students outside the classroom, partnering with the National Academy Foundation of Engineering, to ensure mentoring opportunities, and supporting Phelps’ Flamboyan program to facilitate opportunities for teachers to visit their students’ homes.

Assistant Principal Smith’s path to becoming a school leader began by answering what she describes as the “call and commitment to invest in the future of children from diverse backgrounds and the opportunity to plant seeds and cultivate lives that have the potential to return a harvest that is immeasurable.” She initially answered that call as a teacher, helping American Government and U.S. History come alive for her students and exposing them to new, enriching, and enlightening opportunities.  She continues that commitment in her seventh year of school leadership.

The desire and responsibility to ensure that all students are provided with an excellent education that will prepare them for the demands of a technologically connected world is what motivates Assistant Principal Smith every day. “Every day's journey as a school leader presents me with an opportunity to make a difference in word, deed, or by simply being present in the lives of our students.” Her optimism and investment in the lives of students at Phelps has truly made an extraordinary difference for hundreds of young people in the District.