Janie Ray Smith

Janie Ray Smith specializes in supporting schools and districts through consulting and workshop experiences focused on Understanding by Design (UbD), ASCD institutes and conferences, and site-based work in instructional leadership for teachers and principals. Her areas of expertise include UbD, teacher leader training, and assessment. She is also involved in the merging of instructional planning approaches for UbD and differentiated instruction, another ASCD initiative.

Smith is a member of the ASCD Understanding by Design Cadre and has also presented institutes and workshops for the National Staff Development Council and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. She has worked with schools and districts across the United States, in Asia, and in the U.S. State Department's American overseas schools in Europe, Africa, and South America.

Smith served as director of high school instruction and K–12 curriculum services in the Fairfax County (Va.) Public Schools, a large urban and suburban district, for 13 years. As a director of instruction, she led many efforts to enhance school instructional programs through aligning curriculum and training with state standards; reforming advanced placement and International Baccalaureate program enrollment, training, and achievement; using various approaches to school day and year scheduling; and reforming high school course curriculum. She has also served as a principal and assistant principal at the middle and high school levels, as well as an English and journalism teacher.

Smith has completed post-master's work in educational administration and leadership at the University of Virginia. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism and English from the Mississippi University for Women. She participated in the Norham Center for Educational Leadership at Oxford University in England in 1994 and has taught graduate courses in secondary curriculum, evaluation, and assessment for educational administration programs at the University of Virginia and George Mason University.

Areas of Expertise: Understanding by Design, Teacher Leadership, Assessment, and Instructional Leadership