Once an education assistant at Riverdale High School, Claire Maxwell is now helping to lead the school district as the new chair of the Rutherford County Board of Education. 
Maxwell enters her fifth year as a School Board member. 

She previously worked at Riverdale High School as an education assistant working with students with disabilities. 

“It was my babies — my twin boys — their senior year, and so I wanted to go back to work, Maxwell said. “I found it to be the most rewarding job to go and work with special-needs kids.”
Maxwell also had a nephew with special needs who was attending the school for his freshman year, so the timing worked out perfectly. 

She spent the next five years in the role before being elected to the Rutherford County Board of Education in 2020. 

She was selected as vice chair in 2023 and won another four-year term in August 2024. She was selected as chair by her fellow board members in September and will serve in that role for the next year. 

In addition to being a highly invested member of the School Board, Maxwell has devoted her time to a variety of other boards. 

She has served as a member of the local chapter for the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Junior League, and worked with the Fisher House to bring it to Alvin C. York Veterans Administration Medical Center in north Murfreesboro.