Foster child was in trouble at school, but her principal’s unexpected offer changed her life forever

In 2015, Jason Smith had already been a school principal for 14 years when he met the girl who would one day become his daughter. The sixth-grader was waiting in the hallway after being suspended for throwing a cup of yogurt at lunch. "She was just this sweet-looking, little innocent child sitting there, kind of defeated," Smith recalled in an interview with Good Morning America. When he asked if she would ever throw food at a restaurant, she admitted she had never eaten in one.

That child was 11-year-old Raven Whitaker, who had spent most of her life in the foster care system and was living in a group home at the time. Smith said the conversation struck him deeply. "At that point, I had felt like she just needed a hand, needed help," he said. Smith and his wife, Marybeth, had struggled with infertility for years and once fostered three siblings, only to have them returned to their biological parents. That heartbreak had led them to give up on adoption, but when Smith finally told Marybeth about Raven, she knew it "was something he felt pretty passionate about."

The Smiths contacted Raven’s case worker and began the process of getting recertified as foster parents, and by June 2015, Raven had moved in with them. At first, she admitted, she saw Jason as "the bad guy" because he was the principal, but during her first weekend visit, she felt welcome. "They made me feel extremely welcome, like I was already in the family. They got everything that I needed without even knowing that I would be there forever," she said. Even so, she assumed they would be temporary parents, adding, "I gave them a bunch of trouble to see what would happen. I wanted to test if they were really willing to accept me."

Marybeth understood that Raven had been let down by all the adults in her life, so there was no reason for her to trust two complete strangers at first, which is something many foster kids deal with. A 2015 study about children living in alternative care settings found that these children often display markedly different attachment patterns compared to those raised in stable biological or adoptive families. The instability and emotional disruption inherent in group or institutional care settings can interfere with the development of secure attachments.  Over time, the Smiths gave Raven the stability she needed. They taught her daily routines, helped her catch up in school, and encouraged her to believe in herself. When she moved in, she was reading at a third-grade level despite being 11. With years of work after school and over summers, she caught up to her classmates.

On November 3, 2017, the Smiths officially adopted her when she was a high school freshman, and they were finally the family they had long hoped for. Four years later, she was accepted into the University of Kentucky, where she is now a junior studying social work. "When I took my first social work class, I called my parents and told them, 'I'm where I'm supposed to be,'" she said. In an essay she wrote for National Adoption Month, Raven wrote: "Being fostered by a great set of parents did not erase my trauma, but they provided me with an atmosphere where I learned how to work through it, believe in myself, and give hope to a hopeless kid."

Jason believes their story shows what love and support can do. Now, as they prepare to celebrate their ninth Christmas together, Marybeth says Raven has transformed their holidays. "We might have put up one tree before Raven, almost out of obligation. But now we have not one tree but 10 trees in the house, and a mantle full of stockings. We just love her so much," he said.

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