Dr. Sherry Whitesides Poole Named School Leader and Founding Director of Asheville Peak Academy

No stranger to leadership, Dr. Poole has served most recently as the Director of Career & Technical Education for Asheville City Schools, where she has led and supervised career programs, pathways, and services for students at the high school and middle school levels. In addition, her chief responsibility has been to oversee the federally funded Charles D. Perkins grant for all CTE programs and teaching positions.

In 2016 Dr. Poole was named an Assistant Principal at Asheville High School, her alma mater, where she also served as the 1984 senior class president. As a 12-year Asheville City Schools alumna, Dr. Poole is looking forward to leading Asheville Peak Academy with the same dedication and commitment to education that she received 37 years ago in city schools.

Before becoming an educator, Dr. Poole worked as a Marketing Communications Specialist for IBM in Atlanta, GA, and Houston, TX for eight years until the department moved overseas. She then worked as an investigator for Child Protective Services with the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, a position that led her to pursue a second career as an educator.

Dr. Poole began her teaching career as a middle-school life science teacher in Aldine, Texas Independent School District, the 2009 winner of the nationally recognized Broad Prize for Urban Education. It is the sixth-largest school district in Houston, serving over 67,000 students.

During her five-year tenure with Aldine ISD, Dr. Poole used a learner-centered approach to teach students in a Title I environment. She collaborated extensively with the science department to incorporate rigor, relevance, and relationship-building teaching strategies and help lead the students in achieving the highest science scores of the seven middle schools in the district.

In addition, Dr. Poole participated in a Professional Learning Community: Model for Entry into Teaching Science (PLC-METS), a mentoring program sponsored by Texas A & M and Lone Star College to increase teacher retention in science. She also served as a Team Manager for Destination Imagination, an international competition designed to challenge students in STEM, the arts, and social entrepreneurship.

Destined for leadership, Dr. Poole facilitated several campus committees while in Aldine ISD, including PBIS (Positive Behavior Instructional Support) and School Climate. However, she believes her most notable contribution to education and community involvement included serving as the campus facilitator for ARK (Adults Relating to Kids) and BAA (Bonding Against Adversity) and going door-to-door encouraging students who had dropped out to return to school. Dr. Poole also joined the district’s Leadership Awareness Academy, a training program for future administrators, and completed a one-year supervised internship in administration as required by her doctoral program.

In 2012, needing to balance her active role as an educator with being the mother of a vibrant and well-rounded high school student and athlete—while simultaneously completing her doctorate in Educational Leadership and Administration—Dr. Poole joined Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District, the second-largest school district in Houston, serving over 117,000 students.

She was initially hired to teach life science to students in the NAC (New Arrival Center) Program upon their entry into the United States from Latin America and Asia, but her energy and enthusiasm prompted staff to encourage her transition into the theater arts and professional communications program to help retain and rebuild the department. While in that position, Dr. Poole directed and produced two full-length plays during her first year as the theater teacher, ending the drama department’s eight-year hiatus. She also created a drama club in collaboration with the feeder high school to allow high school drama students to serve as mentors and acting coaches for middle school students.

As a professional communications/speech teacher, Dr. Poole taught middle school students how to develop and improve their interpersonal communications skills by performing speeches to inspire, inform, entertain, and persuade. Her students very enthusiastically represented the school at the district’s second annual technology festival, Ride the Digital Wave, where they showcased original recorded TV commercials demonstrating their understanding of persuasive speech.

In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she again served on the campus PBIS Committee to develop special incentives to promote positive behavior and discipline throughout the school. The principal also appointed her to serve as the Campus Lead Mentor for new teachers and facilitated the district-sponsored New Teacher Induction Program.

Dr. Poole holds NC educators’ licenses in the fields of School Administrator/Principal; Speech Communications (K-12); Special Populations Coordinator; Career Development Coordinator (6-12); Career-Technical Education Director; Science (6-9); Language Arts (6-9); Mathematics (6-9); and Social Studies (6-9).

She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism & Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1988. In addition, Dr. Poole earned a CACREP accredited master’s degree in Human Services/Counseling Studies from Capella University and a master’s certificate in Diversity Studies. In 2013, she earned her PhD in Educational Leadership and Administration also from Capella University.

Dr. Poole is also the proud mother of Patrick Poole, a 2020 graduate of Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, TX and 2016 graduate of the Cy-Falls High School in Houston, TX. She is a member of the Asheville Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and serves on the boards of the YWCA Asheville and Delta House Life Development, Inc. Dr. Poole is also a fifth-generation member of Hopkins Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church in Asheville.