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1. Recent decades · 1976–2026

2. 1990s
   Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools form a Blue Ribbon Task Force after Black parents press on the achievement gap

   Black parents demanded more resources for disadvantaged students, and the district responded with a Blue Ribbon Task Force. The article judges that it changed little: the gap between Black and White test scores, tracked since the 1980s, narrowed only slightly.

3. November 19, 1998
   Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board adopts its school assignment and reassignment policy

   Policy 4150 set the rules the district followed when it redrew attendance lines. As revised on April 2, 2009, its priorities for reassignment were walk zones, full use of buildings and equity, meaning balanced family income and achievement among schools and short travel times.

4. 2010
   Statistic or record · Carrboro; Chapel Hill The 2010 census counts the Asian American population of Carrboro and Chapel Hill

   Asian Americans were 8 percent of Carrboro's 19,582 residents and 12 percent of Chapel Hill's 57,233. Chinese residents were the largest Asian group in both towns, while people from Burma made up a fifth of Carrboro's Asian population and 6 percent of Chapel Hill's; 24 percent of Carrboro residents and 16 percent of Chapel Hill's were born abroad.

5. 2012
   Statistic or record · Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Chapel Hill Asian Americans are the largest racial minority in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools and in Chapel Hill

   By 2012 Asian Americans outnumbered every other minority group in the school district and in the town of Chapel Hill. In 2012-13 they were 15 percent of district students and 31 percent at Seawell Elementary, where many Chinese immigrant families had settled.

6. Late 2012
   Protest or organizing · Section 74A (Larkspur, Parkside, Northwood), Chapel Hill Section 74A parents organize to stay out of the Northside redistricting

   Parents in the Larkspur, Parkside and Northwood neighborhoods, most of the vocal ones recent Chinese immigrants, started an online group, met at the Chinese school, petitioned the board with hundreds of signatures and wrote letters to the Chapel Hill News. They backed Plan 4.1, the only draft that kept their children at Seawell, and drew up alternative assignment plans of their own.

7. 2012
   Publication, speech or performance · Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Chapel Hill The Asian American Parent Advisory Council declines to back the Section 74A parents

   The council, a parent group formed to represent Asian American families in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, said in a letter to the Chapel Hill News that it did not see the redistricting as a racial matter and would not join the opposition. Its vice chair said she also hoped to counter a growing belief that Asian American parents were racist.

8. 2012
   Law, policy or court · Northside Elementary School site, Chapel Hill The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board decides to build a new Northside Elementary on the old school's site

   The board announced a new elementary school on the grounds of the Northside school that had closed in 1966, to carry the Northside name. Black families in the Northside neighborhood, whose children had been bused to other schools for decades, welcomed it as a return of their school.

9. December 2012
   Law, policy or court · Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education, Chapel Hill The school board votes 5-2 for the attendance plan that fills the new Northside Elementary

   After two months of public hearings on four draft plans, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board chose Plan 2.1, which spread at-risk students most evenly among the elementary schools and reassigned about 1,045 children. Most came from the two schools nearest Northside, including crowded Seawell Elementary, and the whole Section 74A area north of town was moved.

10. 2013
    Closing or ending · Chapel Hill Lee Charter School, the first charter school proposed for Chapel Hill, fails to open

    The school, meant to serve minority and low-income students and narrow the achievement gap, had been set to open in fall 2012 and was put off a year while it looked for land and space. It then broke with its parent company and never opened, and most Section 74A families sent their children to Northside.

11. 2017
    Appointment, election or service · Chapel Hill Town Council, Chapel Hill Hongbin Gu is elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council, its first Asian American member

    Gu, an immigrant from mainland China and principal of Chapel Hill's first Chinese school, had counseled Section 74A parents during the 2012 redistricting fight. She won a council seat in 2017.

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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 4, 2026.