Born the middle of five children and raised in Staunton, Katrina Lassiter comes from a family with hearts for children who have different needs.
Lassiter recently was named director of Valley Academy by Waynesboro Schools. She takes the reins from CJ Van Devander, who accepted a position with Augusta County.
“I felt like I’ve always had a heart for trying to work with kids that struggled a little bit differently,” Lassiter said.
Lassiter’s parents modeled for her and her siblings a life of giving back with fostering children, her father working with juvenile probation and her older brother, Chris, who now works with local nonprofits as part of the Community Foundation of the Central Blue Ridge.
Her mother, now a minister, has worked with special education and at the Wilson Workforce & Rehabilitation Center.
“We’ve always been a family where we try to go where there’s a different type of need and try to be supportive where we could,” Lassiter, a 1998 graduate of Robert E. Lee High School in Staunton, said. “This felt right.”
After earning a degree in criminal justice from Virginia Wesleyan University, she planned to be in probation or to be a crime scene technician, but employment opportunities were limited when she graduated and she had no experience yet in the field.
She was encouraged to work in residential treatment after witnessing that some students with behavior issues acted up when asked to read.
“It was extremely stressful for them. They were already dealing with some dis-regulation of emotion and then you’re asking them to do something in front of people that’s very difficult for them,” Lassiter said.
ICYMI: Valley Academy in the news
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- Waynesboro Schools names Katrina Lassiter to director of Valley Academy
Her hope was to enter education and prevent students from having behavior issues by preventing the triggers that lead to their stress. She pursued a career in at-risk pre-K in Chesapeake, but a lack of mentorship discouraged her from believing she could succeed in education.
Then her dad called her from Staunton and said Northside Middle School in Norfolk needed a special education teacher. She told him: “I don’t want to be in education. I don’t think this is for me.” But her dad insisted she give it a try. She accepted a position as a special education teacher at Northside Middle. While at the middle school for five years, she met a student who needed help, but she felt she was not able to advocate for him.
She decided to return to school for a degree in school administration so that she could advocate for students, but she believed she did not want a position as an assistant principal or principal of a school.
“I wanted to be in a position where I was doing what was in the best interest for kids and I wasn’t sure I was the right person for it [at the time],” Lassiter said of her resistance to the field of education.
Her next position was as instructional coach for special education in Norfolk and then dean of students.
By 2017, Lassiter’s grandmother was getting older, and she wanted to be closer to her family again. She was also starting to think about having her own family. She obtained the position as assistant principal of Walker Elementary School in Charlottesville for the 2017-2018 school year.
The following school year, she came to Kate Collins Middle School as an assistant principal before becoming an AP at Waynesboro High School. The class who was in eighth grade at Kate Collins Middle when Lassiter became AP just graduated Waynesboro High.
At Valley Academy, Lassiter works with 30 students from Waynesboro and Augusta County who have struggled to perform academically well in traditional public high school usually for behavioral concerns.
“I feel like I’m fulfilling a purpose versus a position,” Lassiter, who lives in Fishersville with her 3-year-old adopted son, said. “There’s a lot to be said about being able to be of service to people in a little bit different way.”
Now, she cannot imagine a career in anything but education.
“I pretty much adopt all the kids that I work with so most of the time I have a conversation with the parents: ‘Look, at some point in time, I’m going to tell you, these are my babies,'” Lassiter said. “And they’re all like my nieces and nephews. There are a couple of kids that call me auntie from the high school. I could not imagine doing a job outside of education.”
She joins a staff that includes four teachers, one secretary, a counselor, an instructional aide and a Therapeutic Day Treatment counselor.
“I’m hoping what I can do is continue the work that CJ started. They have a really strong foundation here. What I’m hoping is the kids will kind of guide what our next steps are with the feedback they’re giving us,” Lassiter said.
Students have already expressed to Lassiter their goals for instruction and academic goals that will enable them to pursue careers after high school. Some students hope to graduate Valley Academy earlier than they would have if they still attended a traditional high school.
“What I’d really like to do is just be able to be a support for them where they feel like they are not getting support based off of their behavior, and that they know the support is going to be there no matter what the behavior is, but to kind of work with them on the fact that everything you do here is a choice. Everything you do in life is a choice. Just know that choices have consequences,” she said.
Valley Academy is an alternative setting for high school students, some of whom found themselves in trouble in the traditional high school setting but most are not trying to be in trouble.
“They are amazing. They really, truly are. They’re not the sum of their choices,” Lassiter said she wants others to know about students at Valley Academy. The students have put in effort to accept an unexpected change in leadership at Valley Academy.
Lassiter said she appreciates the community support for her taking over as director at Valley Academy so unexpectedly for the 2025-2026 school year. She actually applied for the director position when Valley Academy was about to open a few years ago in Fishersville, but, she said, the timing was not right then.
“The support that I’ve gotten has been overwhelming,” Lassiter said.
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Rebecca Barnabi
