PCPS Celebrates School Board Appreciation Month
Jackie Sullivan-Smoot, who represents District 5 of Page County Public Schools, has been on our school board for 9 years. She says during this time she has learned a lot about how things work from the other side of the table. According to her, education has changed drastically since she began her teaching career in 1974. Mrs. Sullivan-Smoot worked in Education for 34 years as both a teacher and counselor, before retiring in June of 2009. She says there are so many more challenges in today’s world which affect the school day. She enjoys these challenges and serving District 5 as a school board member.
Ms. Sullivan-Smoot says she loves to read, garden, travel, swim, and take care of her grandson. In 2016, she started a Garden Club at Shenandoah Elementary that has become quite the success. With typically 17-35 members each year, she loves sharing her knowledge of gardening and emphasizing to students that they are the future and taking care of our Earth is really important. One project the club does is raise grape tomatoes and they donate these to Mama Mia’s restaurant during the growing season.
Another hobby of Ms. Sullivan-Smoot’s is that she loves to bake, and she shared a story of one of her earlier attempts in making pumpkin bread. She says a friend once gave her a cooking pumpkin and told her how to bake it. She was told to cut it down the middle and to place it face down in the oven. Somehow she missed the part about scooping out the stringy parts and the seeds. When it was done baking, she scooped out what she needed for the bread she was making, placed it in a bread pan, and baked it. She took her creation to school the next day to share with her colleagues. All was good until someone asked her what kind of nuts were in it? When she told them, they had a great laugh at her expense. From that point on she made sure to take good notes and write down instructions.