Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Jack Smith announced on Jan. 14 to his staff that he would be retiring as of June 1. Dr. Smith, who began his tenure as superintendent on July 1, 2016, leaves for personal reasons regarding family, which he cited in his letter.
Smith wrote the following: “As I have shared with some of you, my two-year-old grandson had significant open heart surgery in May 2019 to reconstruct his malformed heart. While the surgery was successful, my wife, Gayle, relocated to Maine to help my daughter and son-in-law care for him. Her stay in Maine to support our grandson was extended with the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Smith has chosen to join his wife Gayle in Maine, saying that he “can no longer tolerate living most of the time separately.”
While Smith is leaving for important family reasons, what he has done for MCPS and students will be remembered. The work he has done for the community includes technology upgrades, allocation of resources, equity accountability framework and other improvements that Smith listed in his farewell letter.
“I think that Dr. Smith came into MCPS in a difficult time. The previous superintendent, Josh Starr, had been pushed out, and there was a long time where we had an acting superintendent, and then we found Dr. Smith who came into a huge school system that didn’t have a superintendent for over a year,” Wootton High School newspaper teacher Evva Starr said. “He’s done a great job bringing steady, calm leadership, and he’s provided some stabilizing leadership when we fell into a time where things were different from how they ever have been before.”
Wootton High School Principal Kimberly Boldon had similar thanks to Dr. Smith.
“I really appreciated Dr. Smith’s leadership, and I think that he came in a tumultuous time in MCPS when we had an acting superintendent for some time, and the incidents with Damascus Football and the Parkland shooting, and with that, I think he’s done a really good job in ensuring that we’re focusing on equity for all students,” Boldon said.
Dr. Smith is recognized for his contribution to MCPS in bringing stable leadership after some times of turmoil in previous years.
“When he first came, he asked these important questions: Are students learning? Are they learning enough? If not why not? These questions helped realign us with the importance of making sure that all of our students are thriving,” Boldon said “I think that it was a really strong moment in shaping what our focus would be in MCPS.”
Article by Simon Kidane of Wootton High School
Photo courtesy of Montgomery County Public Schools