High school English teacher Kimberly Jones has been named North Carolina’s 2024 Teacher of the Year. Photo Credit” NC Newsline
It is always wonderful when an exceptional educator is honored for their outstanding work in the classroom. One of these is Kimberly Jones, a high school English teacher from North Carolina. She has been named her state’s 2024 Teacher of the Year.
Kimberly teaches at Chapel Hill High School in the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools District. She has taught in the district since 2006. There she instructs courses on World Literature to sophomores. Part of her curriculum includes a study of the Holocaust and human rights.
This amazing teacher also instructed classes in AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determinism), a college readiness program designed to increase the number of under-represented students who enroll and succeed in college. Kimberly is a big believer in the program. “As an African American woman from a single parent, rural, working class background, I know first-hand the transformative power of education and the impact of hard-working educators to change lives,” Kimberly reveals.
In addition to her work in the public school, Kimberley serves as a Site Director for the Olga Lengyel Institute for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights in North Carolina. She also works as an education consultant for PBS North Carolina. In these roles, she leads and supports fellow educators in North Carolina and throughout the country in designing lessons that help students better understand literary, cultural, and historical texts and events.
For her work as a professional educator, Kimberly has won numerous awards. In 2024, she was honored by Governor Roy Cooper and the NC African American Heritage Commission for Contributions to Public Education. She was honored with the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Equity Equals Excellence Award. She was also named the Chapel Hill Public School Foundation Sullivan Chair for Excellence in High School English Education in both 2022 and 2023. And as if all that were not enough, she was honored as WCHL’s Radio Chapelboro Hometown Hero Award.
Kiimberly earned her Bachelor’s degree in English in 2005 and her Master of Arts in Education with a Concentration in Secondary English Instruction in 2006, both from Wake Forest University. She is also a National Board Certified Teacher.
