Kirk Smothers

Kirk has served as Head of School at DVFriends since 2015. Over more than thirty years in education, he has been a teacher, college admissions officer, college guidance director, and Upper School director. He came to DVFriends from Mary McDowell Friends School in Brooklyn, where he was the founding Upper School Director, and previously served as Upper School Director at The Calhoun School on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Kirk earned his B.A. in History and Economics/Business from Cornell College, an Ed.M. in Educational Leadership from the Klingenstein Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, and an M.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College (Annapolis, MD, and Santa Fe, NM). He is also a graduate of the Friends Council on Education’s Institute for Engaging Leadership in Friends Schools.

He currently serves on the executive committees of the Friends Council on Education and the Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools and is a member of the School Committee at Abington Friends School. Previously, Kirk served as a trustee of Mary McDowell Friends School and the New York Quarterly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

Originally from the Colorado Front Range, Kirk loves spending time in natural landscapes—especially forests and rivers that remind him of the Rockies. He is also a Quaker.