Carol P. Ray

Carol P. Ray, M.Ed. is the principal of Asheville High School in Asheville, North Carolina. She is a nationally distinguished principal, twice named Principal of the Year in Asheville. In over 30 years as an educator Carol has been a teacher, assistant principal, a director of elementary education, and the principal of four schools: Jones Primary School, Hall Fletcher and Claxton Elementary Schools, and Asheville High School.

In 2004 Carol received the prestigious Patrick Francis Daly Memorial Award for Excellence in Educational Leadership from Yale University, which has been given to Comer school principals who have demonstrated both outstanding leadership and commitment to children. That year she also received the Congressional Black Caucus Educational Leadership Award for Empowering Families & Communities.

Carol speaks nationally on educational leadership and is a contributing author of Six Pathways to Health Child Development and Academic Success and Transforming School Leadership and Management to Support Student Learning and Development. She was featured in a chapter in Leave No Child Behind: Preparing Today’s Youth for Tomorrow’s World by Dr. James P. Comer.

In October 2010 Carol delivered a riveting presentation describing how she implemented the Comer School Development Program and dramatically increased student achievement and engagement at the schools which she has led at the briefing for the NCATE Initiative on Increasing the Application of Developmental Sciences Knowledge in Educator Preparation at the National Press Club. To learn more about how Carol and her staff used the Comer Process to close the achievement gap in Asheville, click here.

Carol earned her B.A. from Mars Hill College in Elementary Education with a minor in music, and her M.A. and Administrative Certificate from Western Carolina University.