Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools

In the chronology

1. 1908 E. M. Highsmith becomes the first superintendent of the Chapel Hill schools The book's list of Chapel Hill school superintendents begins with E. M. Highsmith, 1908 to 1910. Chapel Hill ran its schools as a separate unit under a special legislative charter.
2. February 26, 1909 The legislature creates the Chapel Hill Graded School District An act ratified February 26, 1909 created the Chapel Hill Graded School District, with a special school tax and six trustees, among them Charles H. Herty and N. W. Walker, who ran its schools free of the Orange County board. Voters had to approve it in May; the city school system dates its founding to 1909.
3. 1916 Chapel Hill's white graded school and high school move into a new West Franklin Street building Paid for by a $35,000 bond, a new Chapel Hill Graded School building designed by Hook and Rogers was finished on West Franklin Street in spring 1916. It housed white elementary and high school students, and Chapel Hill High School counts 1916 as its founding year, though its classes predate the building.
4. 1923 to 1924 Lettie Glass serves as acting superintendent of the Chapel Hill schools Lettie Glass ran the Chapel Hill schools as acting superintendent while Fred W. Morrison was away, and again in 1923-1924. She is the only woman in the book's list of superintendents.
5. August 15, 1955 Chapel Hill school board pledges to comply with Brown "to the best of our ability" Under chairman Carl Smith, the Chapel Hill school board unanimously resolved to comply with the Supreme Court's integration ruling to the best of its ability while operating its schools under the state's school laws, keeping existing assignment practices for 1955-56.
6. March 1957 Frances Hargraves teaches Chapel Hill's new special education classes at Northside School The Chapel Hill schools had begun special education classes, one at Chapel Hill Elementary School and one taught by Frances Hargraves at Northside School. The Junior Service League paid a $200 scholarship for her training.
7. December 17, 1957 Chapel Hill Elementary pupils play carols with professional musicians at the school Christmas program At the Chapel Hill Elementary School Christmas programs on December 17, 1957, directed musically by Adeline McCall, supervisor of music in the Chapel Hill schools, children playing psalteries, violins and bells accompanied the carols with two harpists, violinist Dorothy Alden and flutist Dorothy Hickok. The programs also staged the play Alias Santa Claus.
8. August 5, 1958 Carrboro voters approve merging their school district with the Chapel Hill unit On August 5, 1958 the Carrboro school district voted 713 to 303 to merge with the Chapel Hill city school unit and levy a 15-cent school tax, after a spring vote had failed. The county board sold the old Carrboro School to R. B. Todd for $30,000 in September 1959.
9. 1959-60 school year Carrboro's schools join the Chapel Hill city unit The merger Carrboro voters approved in August 1958 took effect with the 1959-60 school year, taking 462 pupils out of the Orange County system; in 1958-59 Carrboro Elementary had stayed under the county board while high school pupils and Black elementary pupils could attend Chapel Hill schools free.
10. August 3, 1959 Chapel Hill school board refuses Stanley Vickers a transfer to all-white Carrboro Elementary and adopts a first-grade proximity policy The Chapel Hill City Board of Education denied ten-year-old Stanley Vickers a transfer from all-Black Northside Elementary to the nearer all-white Carrboro Elementary School, and at the same meeting adopted a policy that first-grade reassignment requests based on geographic proximity would ordinarily be granted starting with the 1960-61 year. UNC law dean Henry Brandis, who had voted for the transfer, resigned from the board in protest and called the action legally and morally indefensible. People: Stanley Vickers, Henry P. Brandis Jr.
11. August 11, 1959 White Cross voters turn down a merger with the Chapel Hill schools a second time White Cross voters defeated a merger of their school into the Chapel Hill city district, 116 to 110, a year after Carrboro had joined it; a first vote had failed in May 1958. A third vote failed in the spring of 1960, and the county closed the school in 1961. The county board sold the White Cross property to Edmiston Realty Company for $14,900 in 1967.
12. August 31, 1959 Brandis returns for the Vickers hearing, then leaves the Chapel Hill school board Brandis withdrew his August 3 resignation so he could sit at the board's hearing on Stanley Vickers's transfer request on August 31. He resigned again after that meeting, and the board named a committee to find his successor. People: Stanley Vickers
13. February 2, 1960 The Vickers family files its federal suit against the Chapel Hill City Board of Education Suing through his parents, Stanley Vickers asked the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina to declare his right to attend the public schools without racial discrimination. After the board turned down his June 1960 application to Chapel Hill Junior High, the complaint was amended to seek that school, and the case was tried on October 5, 1960.
14. June 27, 1960 Chapel Hill school board admits its first Black pupils to a white school, three first graders at Estes Hills Elementary Acting under its new proximity policy, the board voted unanimously to grant three of twelve Black reassignment applications for the 1960-61 first grade at previously all-white Estes Hills Elementary School. Applications to transfer to the white junior high school, including Stanley Vickers's, were refused. People: Stanley Vickers
15. 1961–1966 Desegregating the Chapel Hill and Carrboro schools After the school board refused in 1959 to admit ten-year-old Stanley Vickers to Carrboro Elementary, his parents sued, and their 1961 win in federal court set the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools on the course to desegregation. In 1966 all-Black Lincoln High merged into Chapel Hill High, and Lincoln's name, colors and mascot were left behind.
16. August 4, 1961 Federal court rules Chapel Hill denied Stanley Vickers a junior high transfer because of his race Chief Judge Edwin M. Stanley of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina held that the Chapel Hill City Board of Education had refused Vickers reassignment to all-white Chapel Hill Junior High School on account of race and that he was entitled to be admitted there for the 1961-62 school year. The suit had been filed on February 2, 1960 and tried on October 5, 1960. People: Stanley Vickers
17. February 24, 1964 Gloria Williams asks the school board to readmit boycotting Lincoln High students At the Chapel Hill school board meeting, Mrs. Gloria Williams, speaking for parents of students who had joined the Chapel Hill Freedom Committee's boycott of Lincoln High School, asked that all of them be readmitted. The board upheld the expulsion of two senior leaders, Henry Sanford and James Brittain, after Superintendent Howard Thompson said he would resign if they returned.
18. 1966 Northside Elementary closed as the school system integrated The Caldwell Street school closed soon after the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools began mandatory integration in 1966, and the building was turned into office space.
19. 1967 Orange County voters approve $3 million in school bonds for the county and Chapel Hill units In 1967 voters approved a $3,000,000 school building bond, with $1,000,000 for the Orange County schools and $2,000,000 for the Chapel Hill schools. It was the third school bond passed during Superintendent Carr's tenure.
20. 1969 Superintendent Carr's final report recommends studying a merger of the county and Chapel Hill school units In his closing report to the State Superintendent in 1969, G. Paul Carr asked the board to have outside educators study combining the county and Chapel Hill units. He also urged a supplementary school tax, written board policies, kindergartens for all children, a return to six-grade elementary schools and special education at the high school.
21. 1985-1989 Fred Battle serves on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board Fred Battle served on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board of education from 1985 to 1989.
22. November 16, 1987 Hilliard Caldwell tells a Chapel Hill forum that local schools still fail Black students Speaking as home school coordinator for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools at a Human Rights Week forum, Caldwell said the community spent millions on education without adequate results and that few Black students reached the honor rolls. His cousin Ed Caldwell, a school board member, spoke as well.
23. 1990s 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.
24. 1990 Randee Haven-O'Donnell is named Soil and Water Conservation Teacher of the Year Haven-O'Donnell, who taught in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, was named Orange County and North Carolina Soil and Water Conservation Teacher of the Year.
25. 1997–2004 Valerie Foushee is elected to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board Foushee was elected to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro city schools board in 1997 and served until 2004, pressing for equity in the schools. It was the first of the local offices she held over 25 years in local and state government.
26. November 19, 1998 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.
27. 2000 Orange County and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools put the McDougle branch library under contract A contract between Orange County and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Board of Education made the public library in the McDougle schools a branch of the Orange County Public Library, with a county-employed branch librarian. The schools provided space and utilities, the county paid for furnishings, insurance, janitorial service and staff stipends, and branch hours were not to overlap school hours.
28. November 2, 2003 Mel and Zora Rashkis Elementary School is dedicated Hundreds of students, parents and residents attended the dedication of the district's newest elementary school, which opened that August. The school board named it for Mel and Zora Rashkis for their work with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools since they moved to the area in 1962. People: Mel Rashkis
29. 2009 Burma Art Therapy Project begins in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools The Art Therapy Institute began a school-based art therapy program for adolescent refugees from Burma in partnership with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and the refugee community in Orange County. A later UNC evaluation estimated that about 400 Burmese families lived in the county.
30. 2012 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.
31. 2012 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.
32. 2012 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.
33. June 7, 2012–August 26, 2013 School Board converts Frank Porter Graham Elementary into a Spanish dual-language magnet school After a district report named serving students with limited English and closing the achievement gap as the main purposes of dual language, and after forums that included sessions for Spanish-speaking and Karen and Burmese families, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board approved converting Frank Porter Graham Elementary into a Spanish-English magnet school. It reopened as the district's first dual-language magnet on August 26, 2013, with more than 500 students.
34. December 2012 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.
35. 2013 A new Northside Elementary opened on the old Training School grounds The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools opened a new Northside Elementary on the former Orange County Training School site. In 2012 neighbors had rallied to make sure the new school kept the Northside name.
36. March 3, 2016 Joal Broun is sworn in to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board The district said Broun, a former Carrboro alderman then directing the state's lobbying compliance division, was sworn in to fill the seat left by Michelle Brownstein's resignation. She had also served on the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board and the Orange County Dispute Settlement Center.
37. March 7, 2019 Joal Broun is elected chair of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board The board elected Broun chair by unanimous vote after chair Margaret Samuels resigned during a recall push over the Glenwood Elementary dual language magnet decision. Mary Ann Wolf took the vice chair seat Broun had held.
38. March 13, 2020 Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools launches Food for Students meal distribution CHCCS, the Town of Chapel Hill, PORCH and volunteers began handing out free meals to students as schools closed, starting from about 20 sites. By December 21, 2020 the program had distributed more than 900,000 meals from 37 sites.
39. March 16, 2020 Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools close under a statewide order Governor Roy Cooper closed all North Carolina public schools for at least two weeks from Monday, March 16, 2020, shutting both Orange County districts. CHCCS then began online classes for grades 6-12 and sent learning packets home for grades K-5 at the end of March while serving meals to students.
40. July 30, 2020 Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools extends online-only classes into The CHCCS board unanimously accepted interim Superintendent Jim Causby's recommendation to keep classes virtual through at least January 15, 2021. On December 18, 2020 the board kept remote learning in place through at least February.
41. March 22, 2021 Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools students return for hybrid classes The CHCCS board voted unanimously on March 4, 2021 to begin hybrid in-person instruction on March 22, nearly a month before the April 19 start it had approved in February. Students attended in cohorts two days a week, and roughly half could remain fully remote. People: Joal Hall Broun
42. August 12, 2021 Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board honors Stanley Vickers and his family on the 60th anniversary of his court victory The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board passed a resolution recognizing the Vickers family's work to integrate the schools. Vickers, then in his 70s, attended and recalled eating lunch and going to gym alone as one of the first Black students at the junior high.

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