Melissa Bailey Photo
Shanta Smith.
Edgewood Principal Shanta Smith is the latest school administrator leaving for a job outside the district.
After five years as principal at the Westville-based elementary school, Smith made the announcement in a Wednesday afternoon newsletter to parents, saying that she’s headed to Greenwich’s Hamilton Avenue School this summer.
A former math coach in New Haven who became an assistant principal in the shoreline suburb of Clinton, Smith returned to the city in 2014 to step in after Edgewood’s former principal abruptly left mid-year.
Since then, with help of a major federal grant, Smith had overseen the revision of Edgewood’s magnet theme for the first time in 12 years — a shakeup meant to close persistent racial and economic achievement gaps at one of the city’s few integrated elementary schools.
Under her leadership, the school started developing a curriculum that integrates its old focus on arts and creative thinking with a new emphasis on STEAM, an acronym for science, technology, engineering, arts and math. As the district told the feds in their grant application, the goal is to create “student artists and scientists [who] are inspired by the natural world through in-depth explorations in Edgewood Park.”
It also diversified the student body by setting aside at least 15 percent of its seats for low-income students who live outside the neighborhood zone and who previously attended low-performing schools.
In the letter to parents, Smith said she had enjoyed serving as a New Haven principal but felt that it was the right time for her to move forward with another career opportunity.
“Thank you for your support and for entrusting your most precious gems to us each day,” Smith wrote. “It has been a pleasure to work collaboratively with all of the stakeholders to build a shared vision of Edgewood Excellence and to create a learning environment that is warm, rigorous, compassionate and responsive to the needs of our students and families.
“Although I will miss working with the Edgewood school community I look forward to embracing this new and exciting career opportunity. I have learned so much from you, your children and New Haven Public schools during my tenure as Principal at Edgewood. You and your children have enriched my life and enhanced my leadership skills and abilities,” Smith went on. “I look forward to hearing great things about the students’ accomplishments as they continue their education at Edgewood Creative Thinking Through STEAM Magnet School and beyond.”
One parent, Molly Wheeler, said she hopes the next principal continues Smith’s emphasis on making Edgewood feel like an inclusive community. To get there, though, she said she thinks the district should take steps to prevent privileged voices from taking over the search for a replacement.
“Ms. Smith has done a great job of leading Edgewood as a school that can’t be defined by one kind of family, one neighborhood from where a student comes each morning or one way of being involved. Edgewood is a magnet school and contains kids from all over the city, and her vision is always one that contains the whole city,” Wheeler said. “As a white parent that lives in Westville, who thinks and wants to learn a lot about how to be be part of community without centering Westville or my whiteness, I appreciate her willingness to talk about what makes a school a community. I hope that the next principal is willing to have the same lens on the school.”
Wheeler added that she feels “wary” about parents being involved in the principal selection process at all, outside those who are on the school planning and management team, which is supposed to act as the school’s decision-making body. “The selection processes can reinforce or bring forward biases,” she added, “so I hope the process of selecting a new principal can be inclusive, if parents will be involved at all.”
Smith is the latest administrator to submit her resignation, as the district’s top talent heads calls it quits.
So far, four other principals — Ross-Woodward’s Cheryl Herring-Brown, Riverside’s Larry Conaway, Clemente’s Pam Franco and Barnard’s Rosalyn Bannon — all said they won’t be coming back next school year.
Losing 5 principals in one year is tough, and losing a young principal stings even more.
From Ms. Wheeler's quotes, it sounds like Edgewood provided Shanta Smith important experience managing helicopter parents. Different schools have different problems, so best of luck in GPS!