Principal's Message

Currently serving as the principal of Forest Hills Elementary, Dr. Jennifer Colvard-Davis has over 15 years of experience fostering positive change in instruction and curriculum, resulting in enhanced academic growth for students in north Alabama.  As a leader, she values building positive relationships to improve the culture and climate of schools so that all stakeholders have a voice in the process and practice of change.  She firmly believes in an instructional improvement model where teachers, school-level leaders, and central office administrators work collaboratively to identify a problem of practice and then craft a method for improving that problem.   This researched-based, cyclical approach has proven to be beneficial to Dr. Colvard-Davis as a leader as she has used it to foster growth and improvement in the schools that she has led.  

Dr. Colvard-Davis’ teaching career began at Florence High School where she taught AP Language and Composition, English 10 and 11, and Dual Enrollment English.  In 2018, she became an assistant principal in Florence City Schools, serving at both Florence High School and Florence Freshman Center.  After six years as an assistant principal, she took on the role of principal at Florence Freshman Center in 2023 where she increased Pre-AP course enrollment by 20%, increased the CRI credential rate for ninth grade students to 81%, and improved academic rigor and student engagement through a school-wide focus on student discourse in classrooms.  She served as Director of K-12 Curriculum and Instruction for Florence City Schools for the 2025-2026 school year and was named principal for Forest Hills Elementary in June 2026.  

JCD, as she is called by her colleagues, is a CLAS Certified Instructional Leader (2025) and earned her doctoral degree from the University of Alabama (2022), where she received the C. John Tarter Graduate Student Excellence in Educational Leadership Research Award.  She is an alumnus of Shorter University in Rome, Georgia (BA in English-2006), the University of Alabama (MA in TESOL-2008), and the University of North Alabama in Florence, Alabama (Class A Certification in ELA 2010 and Ed. S in Instructional Leadership, 2016).