Joyanna Smith currently serves as Ombudsman for Public Education. She has worked in the education sector since 2009, starting as a member of the school leadership team with Excel Academy, DC’s first all-girls public charter school. Ms. Smith also completed an attorney fellowship with the Educational Opportunities Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, working on classroom assignment practices, school choice issues, and higher education. Ms. Smith is currently a member of the State Title 1 Committee of Practitioners. Ms. Smith’s career also includes policy work for the DC Department on Disability Services, where she convened policy work groups to improve service delivery to all individuals with disabilities.
Ms. Smith received an B.A. in English from Brown University and a Juris Doctor from The George Washington University Law School.