Community School’s Kaitlyn Smock, headed for Montana, shows STEM is a girls’ world

Leading the way in the arts and STEM in Spokane, Kaitlyn Smock is a senior at the Community School graduating this June.

“Kaitlyn is someone who has always rejected binary choices,” said Nathan Seaburg, Smock’s adviser for all four years of high school. “You could have path A and path B and she consistently says yes to both.”

In fact, Smock has been the team captain for an all-girls robotics team sponsored by Girl Scouts for the past eight years. During those eight years, Smock and her team have won three state championships.

“Our team has recently become official STEM ambassadors for all of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho,” Smock said.

Within this role, Smock and her teammates teach young people about robotics and mentor younger robotics teams. They also lead by example and show how women are capable of excelling at STEM.

Smock is involved with various theater productions, as she had been participating in community theater in Spokane for more than a decade.

She has acted in over 30 plays. She also has experience stage managing and participating in the creative side of productions.

“She is wonderful. She’s dynamic, she’s intelligent, she willing to risk, she’s self-reflective,” Seaburg said. “I am buying stock in this kid; she is going to do some pretty incredible things.”

On top of being a leader with robotics teams and theater productions, Smock has also been involved in working with and serving the Spokane community.

In both her first and second year at the Community School, Smock was a lead organizer for Spring into Action. The event took place a day in April when no students had classes, and the entire school went out and volunteered at a handful of locations across Spokane.

“Our school collectively got close to 2,000 community service hours throughout that whole day,” Smock said.

Following graduation, she is planning on attending Montana State University to study either marketing or public relations with a STEM minor. She hopes to one day pursue a career in Esports.

“I think I’m going to look back and remember from my high school experience that I was really involved in seeing the betterment of the community,” Smock said. “I think that I have really left a footprint at TCS and slightly smaller one the Spokane community as a whole.”

While Smock has been very involved in high school, she has also learned what some people never learn, the importance of stability.

“I have been proud of the way in which I’ve seen her be able to find balance in a world that is constantly vying for her attention and talent,” Seaburg said. “I am proud of the way she has learned to say ‘no’ and prioritize things.”

As Smock begins to start a new chapter of her life, her adviser says they are proud of her ability to come up with new ideas and stay interested. Seaburg wants her to remember to find support in her new environment in order to find the most success.

“Find that support structure,” Seaburg said. “Find your people and keep them close.”