Dr. Jennifer Smith
Halle's Haven Child Care Center
Supported By:
Terri Dennison
Small Business Center Director, Bladen Community College
Meet the Entrepreneur
Dr. Jennifer Smith brings decades of executive leadership in education, child development, and organizational management to Halle's Haven Child Care Center. Throughout her distinguished career, she has led schools, districts, and educational initiatives across the United States, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, positively impacting hundreds of thousands of children and educators. Guided by a lifelong passion for serving children and families, Dr. Smith founded Halle's Haven to provide exceptional childcare, educational support, and compassionate care in an environment where every child can learn, grow, and thrive.
About the Business
Halle's Haven Child Care Center will provide quality childcare services 24 hours a day, five days a week, offering families with nontraditional work schedules access to safe, nurturing, and dependable care. The center is designed to support both children's development and parents' peace of mind.
About
Dr. Jennifer Smith has served at the Senior Executive Level in the field of education for the majority of her career. She has served at the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction in the USA supervising principals and implementing academic and leadership changes to salvage the lowest performing schools within the state, thus restructuring them into schools of high academic growth and performance.
Prior to serving at the State Department of Public Instruction overseeing the lowest-performing schools in North Carolina, Dr. Smith served as a District Office Administrator with Bladen County Schools, overseeing the high schools, the curriculum, and the Initially Licensed Teacher program. During her leadership career in North Carolina, Dr. Smith has also served as a Principal with both Bladen County Schools and Columbus County Schools. After serving her home counties as a Principal and District Office Administrator, Dr. Smith then extended her leadership skills to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, serving as a high school Principal. After serving as a Principal in Charlotte, Dr. Smith was recruited to serve as a Principal with the Department of Defense Schools in South Korea at Osan Middle School, leading the school to national standards of academic success.
After serving as a Principal in South Korea, Dr. Smith accepted a Superintendent’s position in the United Arab Emirates. She positively impacted the educational standards and culture of education in the Middle East, successfully serving as the Chief Superintendent with Abu Dhabi Education Council for six years, supervising over 500,000 students and 118 schools and principals. Dr. Smith still serves as an Independent Consultant for the Ministry of Education in the United Arab Emirates and is responsible for conducting the annual Principals’ Summer Leadership Training for the government public schools of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. After supporting the educational system in the United Arab Emirates as Chief Superintendent, Dr. Smith then successfully served as Continent Educator Director of Africa, supporting seventeen countries in East and Southern Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Dibouti, Eritrea, Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. She was instrumental in evaluating the performance of principals and school leaders throughout the continent of Africa. She also planned, developed, and provided training and staff development programs to principals and school leaders to increase the academic performance of students and to bring cultural awareness regarding the importance of education.
After supporting the educational system within the continent of Africa, Dr. Smith transitioned to Asia as a Superintendent in Beijing, China, supporting the Chaoyang Kaiwen District. After supporting the field of education in China, she then accepted a leadership position in Europe, serving as a Superintendent in Warsaw, Poland prior to returning to the USA in the midst of the COVID pandemic.
Dr. Smith presently still serves as a Board Member for the Continent of Africa’s Private Schools and is highly known and involved in the improvement of the educational system throughout the continent of Africa. In 2016, Dr. Smith founded Halle’s Haven, www.supporthalleshaven.org, named after her one and only child, Halle. Halle’s Haven, in Africa, is a non-profit organization created to provide food, clothing, healthcare, and education to children in need throughout the continent of Africa.
After returning to the USA in 2020, Dr. Smith began the journey of following her passion to care for stray and needy animals by extending the organization into an animal sanctuary, Halle’s Haven Animal Sanctuary, located in Clarkton, NC, which presently supports and provides food, healthcare, and a safe haven for abandoned and rescued animals on her farm in the USA.