Cara Tait-Fanor

Cahn Fellow 2015

Principal, The Williamsburg High School of Art and Technology

Brooklyn, New York

Cara Tait-Fanor was a member of the thirteenth Cahn Fellows cohort in 2015 as Principal of The Williamsburg High School of Art and Technology in Brooklyn, NY.

Cara took over as the principal of NYC iSchool in the summer of 2022 after having worked in the NYC Department of Education for the last 17 years. Cara was a founding teacher at the Green School in Brooklyn, which later became the Williamsburg High School of Arts and Technology (WHSAT). In 2012, Cara became the principal of WHSAT where she focused on prioritizing student voice, equity and innovative problem solving. In 2015, Cara was selected to be a Cahn Fellow, as a part of Columbia University’s Distinguished Principal Fellowship Program. During that time, Cara also served as a host principal through the NYC Department of Education’s Learning Partners Program where she shared her work around collaborative professional development with other principals. From 2019-2021 Cara served with nine other NYC principals on the Chancellor’s Principal's Advisory Cabinet where she worked to develop a citywide instructional and racial equity vision. Cara is a proud parent of an NYC iSchool alum and believes strongly in the iSchool’s vision to be constantly rethinking what education should be in order to best prepare our students for their futures.