Greetings,

I hope each of you have a safe and enjoyable winter break. I encourage you to spend time with family and re-energize as we prepare for the second half of our school year.

We have much to celebrate in our district as we continue our work to do Whatever It Takes for Every Child, Every Day. Congratulations to our teachers across the district who have been chosen by their peers to represent their school as Teacher of the Year.  The Cabarrus County Teacher of the Year will be selected from school winners and will be announced at a ceremony in April where we will celebrate many district-wide professionals who represent the best of the best in Cabarrus County Schools, including our Principal of the Year Tonya Williams, Assistant Principal of the Year Lacee Jacobs and Teacher Assistant of the Year, Scott Parkin.

As we strive to be a state and national leader in K-12 education, I’d like to congratulate students, teachers and advisors of the Cabarrus County Schools’ Computer Science K-12 Pipeline. This outstanding group represented CCS on December 7^th at the Hour of Code Student Showcase sponsored by the North Carolina Office of Digital Teaching and Learning.

Students from Coltrane-Webb STEM Elementary, R Brown McAllister STEM Elementary, Patriots STEM Elementary, Winecoff Elementary, CC Griffin STEM Middle, JN Fries STEM Middle, and Central Cabarrus STEM High demonstrated the following concepts and skills from their classrooms: Beebots, Dash and Dot, Scratch, Sphero Bolts, Vex Robotics, Hummingbird Robots, MicroBits, Finch Robots, and HTML and JavaScript game creation and design.  Schools were selected through an application process through the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and we’re proud of them.

The Board of Education has approved our 2023-24 Academic Calendar which is highlighted by a school start date of Aug. 10, 2023 with the final day of school on May 22, 2024.  This earlier start will allow us to complete our high school exams prior to winter break and also allow us to align our traditional seasonal breaks - fall, winter and spring - with the 2023-24 Early College calendar.  Traditional graduations will occur on May 23-24, 2024 prior to Memorial Day. Early College and Cabarrus Virtual Academy graduation dates are to be determined. 

I hope you enjoy the winter break and wish you safe travels.

Stay Well,

John

John Kopicki, Ed.D.

Superintendent