On occasion, a shooting star will slip into the atmosphere and cast a glimmering trail behind itself, becoming the captivation and inspiration for dreamers lucky enough to catch a glimpse of it as it crosses the spacious skies.

Math teacher Carol Smith has been SMCHS’s shooting star for the past quarter of the century, teaching some of the most challenging courses offered at the school. Now she is off to Louisville, Ky. to go leave her mark on the world there, by watching her grandaughter grow up and opening her own Smith-themed deli. As Smith departs from SMCHS, her students and colleagues remember her most for her fondness of and likeness to stars:

#1 Like a star, Smith  is part of  a constellation.

Smith’s maiden name, Stellina, means “little star” in Italian. Metaphorically, given her family tree, she is of a web of stars called “Stellina.”

#2 Like a star’s edges, she is as sharp as a tack.

Smith has become the legendary teacher of the AP/IB math program, given her brains and teaching flair.

She is famous for  her sweat-breaking exams and chunky rainbow flashcards, which her students skim so often that they have become the next hottest trend in sunny SoCal.

Regardless of how impossible her courses seem at the start, Smith has annually managed to make “mathletes” out of stressed students.

She’s just that sharp.

“She is one of the better teachers of the math department for the upper levels,” junior Ryan Clark said. “I’m bummed she is leaving because she actually teaches us math and gives us meaningful worksheets yet still poses the ability to go off on interesting tangents.”

#3 Like a star, Smith lights up a room.

In the classroom she does not ramble monotonously about numbers, calculations and more numbers, but rather has zesty articulations of life advice and stories to complement her math lectures.

These personal anecdotes keep students engaged and the class environment easygoing and fun.

“She told me how to get out of a parking ticket using calculus,” Clark said. “She gave me all these tips and tricks to talk to the cops. That’s probably my favorite Smith story that I can tell.”

#4 Like a star, she inspires those around her.

Smith raises the bar for her fellow co-workers, given the way she carries herself professionally and challenges her students to grow. She knows how to motivate students to be their best.

It’s a tough task to inspire rambunctious, distracted teenagers to become mathletes. In order to accomplish this, she relied on those of her kind: stars.

“In graduate school there was a statistics professor that whenever anyone would say a smart question or comment, he would point and say ‘Star!’,” Smith said. “At first we thought it was weird because we were adults and he was treating us like kids, but after a while it felt good to earn it and you really wanted a ‘Star!’”

Smith brought this praise system to SMCHS, and it has created star-thirsty students who obsess over who can say the next intelligent thing to win Smith’s heart and get called a “Star!”

Some pupils keep a star count in their notebooks to see how many they have earned. Melissa Montes, Class of 2014, even made “Star!” her senior quote.

“It’s the most exciting experience in the world to get a star,” Clark said. “It’s so exhilarating that I’ve even gone as far as to steal a star. Clayton Gaddie whispered the right answer to a tough problem one time under his breathe so I said it louder to get the star.”

#5 Like a star, Smith leaves a breathtaking streak.

Sure, she was a stickler for dress code and she cared about tardiness, but her justification for it was that after taking her class the math was probably the first thing to slip our minds. However, the way we carried ourselves stick with us forever.

“I want my students to learn that mediocracy is unacceptable,” Smith said. “If you have a high level of expectation for yourself, you can do amazing things.”

So Smith says goodbye, leaving behind the nest for possibly her own deli in Kentucky which might be called “Stellina” in commemoration of her Italian name and the stars which she has become an icon of. She has managed to positively touch thousands of lives and leave a glimmering streak of excellency at SMCHS that promotes work ethic, determination, dignity, humor and non-conformity. Boy, Smith will always have us starstruck.