For the 15th Year, the Public School Foundation and East Rotary Provide School Supplies to Teachers

For 15 years, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Public School Foundation and East Chapel Hill Rotary Club have partnered to kick off the school year by hosting a supply store with much needed school supplies for teachers. The past two years have brought many challenges as the event has been reconfigured as COVID-safe. But on the morning of August 19, a team of PSF and Rotary members and community volunteers carried out the annual event of giving school supplies to grateful teachers across the district.

Chapel Hill HS "Proconian" Publishes PSF-Funded Series

A 2019 Public School Foundation grant awarded to Chapel Hill High School journalism teacher, Stephen Head, serves as a perfect example of the flexibility required for so many projects impacted by the pandemic. Head wrote the grant application to bring in a professional journalist as a guest teacher, with the goal of writing a series of "Proconian" stories about the lives of the workers constructing the new buildings at CHHS. More than 18 months after the original project was funded, the series, “Covid-19 Stories,” became one about how the coronavirus pandemic affected various individuals.

Newcomer/EL Teachers at Carrboro HS Form Dynamic Team

“I’m the type of person who would like to stand in an airport all day long and ask people where they’re going, where they’re from and their culture. And I get to spend all day long with people from other countries and cultures,” said Carrboro High School Newcomer Teacher, Angela McChesney, one of two 2021 CHCCS Honor Teachers recently recognized. Her commitment to English learning students and families at CHS has become legendary, but she always emphasizes that credit must be shared across the team of four Newcomer/EL teachers -- Jackie van Hoewyk, Zach Fehst, Bonnie Carmen and herself.

Northside ES Celebrates "Beginning and Ending with Library Love"

Northside Elementary Librarian, Kathryn Cole, shares an evolving tradition for students that begins with photographs of the children in kindergarten, taken as they check out their first books. "The library is a special place for our students and one where much joy is captured over their years as a Navigator."

East Chapel Hill High School Orchestra Teacher Wins NC. Music Educator Award

Ryan Ellefsen, the Director of Instrumental Music at East Chapel Hill High School for 15 years, has received the 2021 Jackson Parkhurst Award for Special Achievement, an annual honor for one North Carolina music educator. On June 1, a small group of Ellefsen’s CHCCS peers and administrators gathered to see N.C. Symphony Director of Education, Jason Spencer, present the award, with cupcakes as follow up.