Vanessa President Brown is a resident of North Charleston. She is married to Tony Brown and they have 3 adult children. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of South Carolina, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Charleston Southern University and a second Masters in Education Supervision in 2007.

Vanessa taught social studies in Charleston County Schools for nine years before beginning her career as a secondary administrator. She served as an Assistant Principal at R.B. Stall and Garrett Academy of Technology from 2007 until her appointment of Baptist Hill Middle High School in 2015.

Under her leadership the school’s enrollment grew significantly. Her vision of transforming Baptist Hill into a comprehensive, high performing community school that nurtures students, supports educators and serves the community, helped to focus her efforts in promoting college and career readiness. The school made improvements to its facilities including the installation of an eight-lane track, fitness room, and a state of the art career and technology center.

After three years, the middle school moved from being an under-performing school to being rated as average by the state. As one of the smallest schools in the district, Baptist Hill had one of the highest percentages of students taking dual enrollment courses at Trident Technical College. The career and technology education department at the school expanded to include programs such as digital art and design, building construction, engineering, and biomedical science.

In January 2020 she was appointed Principal of the Cooper River Center of Advanced Studies, Charleston County School District’s only regional career center serving 4 comprehensive high schools in North Charleston. The center is a newly designed 84,0000 sq.ft. state of the art facility featuring 9 high demand, high-wage, technology career pathways and 11 programs. While Covid-19 impacted the opening of the Center, as the Instructional Leader, Vanessa and her team continued to move forward in the development of the mission and the vision to “develop highly trained professionals” dedicating themselves everyday to helping students “plan, prepare and pursue their goals”.

Students earn their OSHA-10 certification and a minimum of three additional industry certifications with the completion of each course. Students leave Cooper River Center as College and Career Ready students who are in a position to make a decision about what they want to do with their future.