Why principal of Lexington’s highest-rated school is stepping down, and what’s next
After more than a decade at Lexington’s River Bluff High School, Principal Jacob Smith is stepping away.
The Lexington 1 school district announced Smith’s departure on Tuesday, 13 years after he started as an assistant principal when the district’s newest high school opened off Corley Mill Road in 2013. He will step down at the end of the 2025-26 school year.
“I think life definitely has different seasons of beginnings and endings, and in this one I’ve been at River Bluff for 13 years, and 24 years in education,” Smith told The State. “It’s the best, most incredible, purposeful job you could ever have. But like a lot of professions, it’s an absolute lifestyle.”
A University of South Carolina graduate, Smith started his education career in 2002, teaching science and coaching football at Beaufort High School. He later taught at Columbia’s Spring Valley High School and became principal at Brookland-Cayce High School, where he organized a mentoring program for students at risk of dropping out. Smith oversaw a boost in BC’s final test scores and a 6.5% increase in graduation before he brought the same focus to River Bluff.
“We teach character,” Smith said, through a course called CREW — Creating Relationships, Exploring Within. “We’re teaching the whole child how to be a better person, how to communicate, how to be an effective learner.”
River Bluff gives its more than 2,000 students a flexible college-type schedule that the principal believes best serves students’ needs, and has attracted visits from dozens of other states from educators looking to replicate its example.
“Some might argue against it, but look at the achievements of our students,” Smith said. “You look at what they’re doing in college, in career, in the military, and it needs to be replicated.”
When he first started at the then brand new high school, it was a challenge. Smith remembers then-principal Luke Clamp handing him a list of 25 positions he needed to fill within a month.
“All of the furniture was coming in, and we were writing the handbooks for students and parents,” Smith said. “It was the hardest work I ever did, but also the most fulfilling, and now we’re the highest-rated school in our entire district.”
But all that work takes a toll. As principal since 2021, Smith estimates he works 60 hours a week, where he can be attending sporting events and theater performances at the same time he’s talking a teacher through a cancer diagnosis or implementing the latest state budget proviso. It leaves little time for his wife and college-age children.
In 2023, the Smith family suffered a near tragedy after a car crash while on vacation in Hawaii. The car they were traveling in hydroplaned, crossed the median and collided head-on with an oncoming car before crashing into a lava wall on the side of the road. Smith and his two sons were treated for minor injuries after the accident, but his daughter Bekah, a River Bluff graduate herself, suffered a head and spine injury likened to an “internal decapitation” that left her on a ventilator in intensive care.
Smith briefly stepped aside as principal that school year. But after surgery and a stint in physical therapy, Bekah Smith was able to return home and resume her studies at Liberty University with blessedly little long-term effects. Most injuries such as hers prove fatal. Smith said the love and support his family felt at that time was “a testimony to the love and culture we have in our community.”
At 48, the River Bluff principal said it’s too early for him to talk about retirement. But he isn’t sure what the next season of his life will look like.
“I would hope to maybe speak some, write some, coach other leaders, find ways to give back, teach some at church,” he said. “I don’t know what will happen. I’m not trying to say ‘I’m going to do this.’ I know a lot of people are wondering, but I’d love to have a little more flexibility than I have now.”
But the support Smith has felt from the wider River Bluff community will make stepping away that much harder.
“I’ve felt a tremendous amount of love from the community,” Smith said. “I’ve seen a lot of kids upset, and teachers as well. I hope maybe that means they felt loved, they felt seen and appreciated. Something that comes with the highs of trying something new is also the grieving of something that is so, so special and purposeful.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2026 at 12:05 PM.
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