OM’s newest administrator

By Carly Arauz & Lillian Sengamalay

In this 2024 school year, we would like to formally welcome and introduce our new assistant principal, Mrs. Felicia Bond, to the administrative staff! Mrs. Bond is the 9th-grade administrator this year at OM. 

Mrs. Bond is an impressive educator who is very excited to come work at Oakland Mills. As a young child, she moved around quite a bit due to her father working for the government. She’s lived in Georgia, California, and Maryland, but is originally from Chicago, Illinois. In Maryland, she first attended St. Vincent Pallotti High School but wanted to be able to attend a public school, so she asked to go to Meade High School in Anne Arundel County. She explains, “It had its challenges for sure, but I think it gave me some really good skills of how to figure things out quickly and problem solve. I feel lucky that I got to see and experience lots of different parts of the country and lots of different people because it did give me perspective on different viewpoints and how different people experience things.” As a young child, she wanted to be a journalist. She says, “I was editor of my high school newspaper… I also worked for the Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce and I wrote articles for them and their newspaper for a while.” Outside of her work life, she has two children and enjoys taking them to practices and spending quality time with them. She also loves going to the movies and having fun! 

Mrs. Bond is very well educated. She completed her undergraduate studies at Howard University where she obtained her bachelor’s degree as well as her first master’s degree. She also received graduate certifications from various other schools. Along with her advanced certificates, Mrs. Bond earned her second master’s degree from Notre Dame Maryland University. Before joining Oakland Mills High School, Mrs. Bond was a speech-language pathologist specializing in autism and using communication devices, along with working with individuals who stutter and have disabilities. She then decided she “wanted to be able to work with kids and adults and just have a bigger impact on a school.” 

This is where she moved on to being an Assistant Principal. She worked at Clarksville Middle School but wanted to be able to work at a high school again. She says, “I’ve spent most of my career in high school. I wanted to be back in high school. I spent the last two years in middle school, and that was a nice experience, but high school is where my heart is.” Her favorite part of being an assistant principal is “my day never really looks the same… there’s always different things going on around the building, the kids, it’s just never the same thing. It’s always something kind of exciting and different every day.” 

She’s most excited about Oakland Mills because she’s heard such good things about OM, especially our emphasis on community. She is looking forward to being a part of that and contributing her experiences to the school. When asked about her values in leadership here at OM, she said, “I value voice, so I feel like, as we’re making decisions for different students and people, those should be the people we’re speaking out for. So just really make sure that the people being talked about are part of that conversation, like when talking about what students want to do and what students care about.” She emphasizes that she is looking forward to creating relationships with the students and supporting them and is excited to work with everyone. One thing she wants to tell the Oakland Mills community is, “I’m excited to be here, that I’m looking forward to being part of the OM community, and that I do value student voice and having relationships with students and supporting them. So if there are things that are going on, feel free to stop by and have conversations and kind of just all work together because I want this to be a good experience for everybody.”  

Make sure to give a warm welcome to our new assistant principal!