Assistant Principal Hired For Joel

The students at the Lewin G. Joel Elementary School in Clinton will be returning to school this year with new backpacks, new notebooks - and a new assistant principal.

Shanta Morrison Smith accepted the Board of Education's offer of the position of assistant principal at the school last month. She officially resigned from her current position as assistant principal of the King/Robinson Inter-District International Baccalaureate World Magnet School in New Haven on August 1. She will begin her new role in Clinton on August 15.

In May, Joel School co-principal Jack Gedney announced that he would be taking a new position at a school in Burlington, Connecticut, closer to his home. Claudia Norman is the school's other co-principal.

After deliberating about filling another co-principal position or creating a new assistant position role, the town's Board of Education decided upon the latter.

A search committee was formed and after interviewing many qualified candidates, they chose Smith.

She officially accepted the BOE's offer of employment on July 18 but had not yet informed her district of the decision.

Prior to her role as assistant principal, Smith was the Pre K-8 Math Instructional Coach at King/Robinson, the Saturday Math Academy Coordinator and Instructor at the Amistad Academy in New Haven, Math and Writing Teacher/Advisor at Amistad Academy and an Elementary School Teacher in Washington, D.C. She was also a part-time adjunct faculty and reading instructor at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven.

Smith received her BA in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; a Master of Science degree in Elementary Education from the University of New Haven; and Sixth Year Certificate in Educational Leadership from Southern Connecticut State University,

Smith is married and is the mother of "two vibrant elementary school-aged children."

Please send her a big Clinton hello and welcome!