After five years as principal of Chapel Hill High School, Sulura Jackson will transition to working as the educational liaison for the construction of the new school, before retiring sometime next year.

As Chapel Hill’s longest tenured principal since 2005, Jackson says her favorite part of working at Chapel Hill has been the vast opportunities available here.

“The opportunities are endless to be creative, to try new things. You have parental support here, board support, support from the superintendent and support of parents,” Jackson said.

She has also appreciated the liberal and accepting attitude of the school.

“Kids and teachers seem to be accepted here. You get to be who you want to be here without a lot of questions,” Jackson said. “Like if you want purple hair at Chapel Hill, not many people really care about your purple hair.”

In efforts to make Chapel Hill High School truly inclusive, Jackson has focused on reaching minority students.

“Her whole emphasis has been about students, especially minority students,” English teacher Joanne McClelland said. “She has made a difference in helping close the achievement gap.”

Before Jackson became principal of the school, there was frequent principal turnover. In social studies teacher Bill Melega’s 22 years at the school, he has had 14 different principals.

“We had very capable people who went on to bigger and better things. We’ve also had a very capable principal who was just hung out to dry by the system,” Melega said. “I think it created a lot of instability as we hired people who were not ready. Teachers had to do a lot of things on their own since we did not have a true leader.”

Jackson believes that her legacy has been the creation of a stable leadership at the school.

“If nothing else, I’ve shown you that you can keep leadership here. Our assistant principals have actually created a team,” Jackson said. “We showed you that you can have a stable leadership team at Chapel Hill.”

Jackson hopes the new principal will hold the position for many years to maintain stability at the school.

“I am hoping that the parents and teachers will not accept anything else [from the new principal]. We want someone who will stay here at minimum five years, and, hopefully, longer than that,” she said.

Jackson believes it is time for her to pass the reins, since she admits she struggles staying in touch with the current generation of high school students.

“My biggest challenge is my own old fashion,” she said. “For example, I have an Instagram, but I don’t really like Instagram. I think if you’re going to be a principal in the 21st century, you’re going to have to do social media because your children are doing social media. That’s one of the reasons I knew it was time to retire. If I want to do Instagram, it ought to be something I like to do.”

Student body president Nat Romaine commented that Jackson was always cordial, but her focus on education led to the elimination of many events appreciated by the students, such as Tigerfest.

“She was a really nice principal during the very few times I had the opportunity to interact with her, but she tried to take away things that had created the Chapel Hill High culture,” Romaine said. “She wouldn’t approve a lot of events and activities that for so many years before her had been approved.”

As the educational representative working with the construction workers and architects next year, Jackson hopes to ease the workload of the new principal.

“If you’re the principal, you can’t be focused on the construction and still focused on your students and your teachers, so I’ll take that part off the principal’s plate,” Jackson said.

Jackson is a proponent of the new building because the disrepair of the facilities was a major issue throughout her tenure. “Something floods; something breaks; something stops working. The facility is our biggest challenge,” she said.