The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education is entering the next phase of its search for a new superintendent to succeed Nyah Hamlett, who will be leaving at the end of this academic year in June. During the application window, CHCCS received 37 applications coming from 14 different states for the superintendent position.
Speaking with 97.9 The Hill on Monday, Board Vice Chair Riza Jenkins said the board is currently reviewing the applications and that it will discuss next steps in a closed-session meeting in May. She said the board would ideally like to identify the next superintendent by June, but it is still relatively early in the process and it wants to be appropriately thorough in its search.
“This is really important,” she said. “The superintendent is the leader of our school district, so we want to make the best decision for our students and our community.”
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Nyah Hamlett (left) stands with the 2024-25 Board of Education for a portrait following its organization meeting in December. (Photo via CHCCS.)
CHCCS conducted a survey of staff and community members regarding their priorities and expectations for the next superintendent through early April, which yielded thousands of comments from more than 2,200 respondents. Jenkins said she was encouraged by the level of engagement with the survey.
“It’s really good feedback and representation, hopefully, of our community,” she said. “We had almost 4,500 comments; that’s a lot of comments to read for all the board members.”
In those responses, the top four most important characteristics were the same for community members and staff – with both groups listing a plan for moving the district forward, an understanding of business management and budget challenges, advocacy at various levels of government, and development of relationships between staff, students, and families as top priorities.
Christine Scheef, senior staff attorney at the North Carolina School Boards Association, presented the survey results to the CHCCS board on April 17. She noted the overlap between the community members and staff, which also agreed on the top five most important categories of experience for the next superintendent.
“You will see again that this aligns. Most of the respondents for both the community and the staff survey wanted to see an effective classroom teacher and has been a successful principal. Those were the top two choices on both,” she said. “So again, your community and your staff seem fairly well-aligned in terms of the types of things that they would like to see.”
The other three experience categories in both top-five lists were having experience managing schools, having worked to develop curriculums, and having been an assistant or associate superintendent.
Nyah Hamlett with elementary school students. (Photo via Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools)
Hamlett’s four-year tenure at CHCCS was marked by successes – such as a record-high on-time graduation rate in 2023 and a strategic plan to improve emotional wellness and confidence among students and staff – along with some controversy surrounding her approach to the COVID-19 pandemic and a report of plagiarism in her doctoral dissertation. After leaving CHCCS, she will be moving to Maryland to become the chief equity and development officer in the Montgomery County Public Schools Division of Equity and Organizational Development.
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