New Principal at Rachel Carson Is Middle School Veteran

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Image: Gordon Stokes (FCPS)

A former teacher at Rachel Carson Middle School is returning for the coming academic year to lead the school.

Gordon Stokes was promoted to principal of the Herndon school last month after serving as an assistant principal for three years at South County Middle School. He helped start up the Lorton school - South County began operations in the fall of 2012.

Stokes has spent his career in middle schools in the Fairfax County system. For nine years, he was a seventh-grade history teacher and later a department chair at Rachel Carson Middle School.

Three years ago, in an interview with Patch, he said middle school “is the best. ... The energy - you can’t replicate it. It’s fantastic. The kids are funny and intelligent and they’re starting to form their personalities.

“You have very innocent, naive students who are just trying to keep their heads above water, and then you have kids who think they’re mature and all the points in between,” Stokes said.

The new principal at Rachel Carson was born into a family of educators. His father was a sociology professor at George Washington University, and his mother was a school administrator and social studies teacher.

Stokes received his master’s degree in history from the University of Virginia. He took FCPS leadership courses in 2005, and, in 2007, was an administrative intern at Key Middle School in Springfield. From 2008 to 2012, he worked as an assistant principal at Luther Jackson Middle School in Falls Church.