Chatham County Schools, Local, Pittsboro

One Chatham’s next chapter: Batten puts teaching, staff stability and partnership at center of district vision

By Gene Galin

Pittsboro, NC – Barely two months into his tenure as superintendent, Dr. Kelly Batten used a September 3 conversation with Chatham County Chamber of Comnmerce president Rebecca Dickerson to make a case for both continuity and change: Chatham County Schools should protect its recent academic gains, confront the growing difficulty of hiring employees who can afford to live in the county and build a new five-year plan flexible enough to survive an economy that can change faster than a school system can plan.

Batten’s message at the Chatham Chamber of Commerce’s 2026 State of Chatham Breakfast & Data Briefing was not a proposal for a dramatic break with the district’s current direction. Instead, he described a transition from the One Chatham Strategic Plan, adopted for 2022 through 2027, into another planning cycle that would retain the same unifying idea. The name, he said, is not going away.

“There will not be Two Chatham,” Batten joked when asked whether another strategic plan would follow. “It will still be One Chatham.”

The district is serving more than 8,600 students across 20 schools, administering a budget that exceeded $150 million in the most recently amended fiscal year and operating inside one of North Carolina’s fastest-changing counties. It must improve instruction now while preparing for enrollment shifts, new industries, higher housing costs and demands for new or expanded facilities.

Batten said the district’s answer begins with a priority that is intentionally uncomplicated.

“The role of the public school system is to stay laser focused on high-quality teaching and learning,” he said. “We know that if we stay committed to that, without distractions, without wavering, that it will have positive impacts on the work each of you are doing with nonprofits, with the community and with your businesses.”

The conversation offered an early look at how Batten is framing his administration. Academic outcomes were the proof point. Relationships were the operating philosophy. Affordability, staffing and growth were the pressures. The approaching expiration of the current strategic plan was the deadline tying those strands together.

A familiar leader in a new seat

Batten officially became superintendent July 1 after 14 years with Chatham County Schools and more than two decades in public education. Most recently, he served as assistant superintendent for human resources, leading work aimed at recruiting, retaining and supporting employees. His earlier district responsibilities included early-college programming, expanded access to advanced coursework and professional learning for teachers and school leaders.

Before joining Chatham County Schools, Batten served as principal of Carver High School and held several leadership positions in Wake County Public School System. He began his career as a high school social studies teacher. He holds a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, along with advanced degrees in school administration and teaching.

That résumé gives him familiarity with several of the district’s most important pressure points. He has worked on classroom instruction, pathways connecting high school and college, school leadership and the personnel system now competing for talent across county lines. He also assumes the top job without the learning curve of an outsider arriving during a period of substantial growth.

The Board of Education appointed Batten in April to succeed Dr. Anthony Jackson, who retired after 39 years in public education. Board Chair Gary Leonard described Batten at the time as a proven, steady and student-focused leader who already understood the schools and community.

At the State of Chatham event, Batten grounded that local familiarity in a story about relationships. He recognized a former colleague in the audience and said the district’s culture is shaped by pride in student success and staff impact. His examples ranged from a Siler City elementary school producing sustained academic growth to a Pittsboro teacher receiving national recognition.

Virginia Cross Elementary exceeded expected academic growth for the sixth consecutive year in the 2025-26 accountability results. The school also posted its highest growth result in its nearly 20-year history and improved its school-performance score by eight points in a single year, according to the district.

Batten called Virginia Cross a potential “beacon for the state of North Carolina.” The distinction matters because proficiency measures whether students have reached a fixed standard, while growth examines how much progress they make from their own starting points. For schools serving children with widely different needs and levels of preparation, the growth measure can show instructional impact that a single proficiency percentage does not fully capture.

His second example was Shane Henderson, a fourth-grade teacher at Pittsboro Elementary School and Chatham County native who received a 2025 Milken Educator Award. The national honor carried a $25,000 unrestricted prize. Henderson’s path from school bus driver and instructional assistant to classroom teacher, along with a reported 16-point increase in his class’s reading proficiency, made the recognition both a personal achievement and a local workforce story.

Batten noted that Henderson was the second Chatham County educator in roughly the past decade and a half to receive the award, following Chatham Central High School educator Eric Patton. For a district of Chatham’s size, he said, such recognition reflects individual excellence as well as a community willing to support its schools.

New results give the district a strong starting point

Batten’s appearance came one day after the district released its 2025-26 state accountability results, giving him timely evidence for his emphasis on instruction.

The official results put Chatham County Schools’ four-year cohort graduation rate at 92.3%, up from 90.4% the prior year and above the statewide rate of 88.8%. Batten cited the figure as approximately 92.2% during the live discussion. The small difference does not change the larger point: more than nine of every 10 students in the measured cohort graduated within four years, and the district outperformed the state rate by 3.5 percentage points.

Across 11,915 state assessments, 66.1% of Chatham students demonstrated grade-level proficiency, compared with 59.2% statewide. Two district schools earned an A performance grade, 11 earned a B and 11 exceeded expected growth. Seaforth High School improved from a B to an A, while Chatham Early College earned an A for the fourth consecutive year. J.S. Waters School and Silk Hope School moved from C grades to B grades.

Those results are encouraging, but they do not establish that every student or school is where the district wants it to be. Districtwide averages can mask gaps among schools, grade levels and student groups. Performance grades also combine achievement and growth in a state formula, making it important for families and policymakers to look beyond a single letter.

Batten made that distinction explicit. State-reported data, he said, show what happened on a particular test day. The district also follows cohorts over time, beginning with measures such as third-grade reading and tracking how groups progress through their educational experience.

Third grade is a particularly consequential checkpoint under North Carolina’s Read to Achieve framework. The state’s stated goal is for students to read at or above grade level by the end of third grade, when children increasingly must use reading to learn material across subjects. The end-of-grade exam is one measure, but state law and policy provide additional approved routes for demonstrating proficiency.

Batten said 85.5% of Chatham County third-graders demonstrated reading proficiency when those additional pathways were included. He compared the approach to other consequential tests that allow people more than one opportunity or method to show what they know.

That percentage should not be confused with the reading proficiency rate on one end-of-grade exam. It is a broader Read to Achieve measure, as Batten described it, and it underscores why the district wants the public to distinguish between a test-day score and the fuller body of evidence educators use to assess a child’s progress.

The distinction also points toward a central challenge for the next strategic plan: setting measures that are clear enough for public accountability but broad enough to reflect meaningful learning. Graduation, proficiency and growth each answer different questions. Graduation asks whether students completed high school on time. Proficiency asks whether they met a defined standard. Growth asks how far they moved during a year. A responsible public scorecard needs all three, along with results broken out far enough to show which students are benefiting and which require more support.

College credit has become part of the district’s model

Batten also highlighted a shift in what academic opportunity looks like for high school students. In a room where many adults knew the SAT and Advanced Placement exams as the traditional markers of college readiness, he pointed to dual-enrollment courses that allow students to earn both high school and college credit.

Through Chatham County Schools’ partnership with Central Carolina Community College, eligible students can begin earning tuition-free college credit while still in high school, in some cases as early as 10th grade. Batten said the approach is not a passing trend but has become part of the district’s “DNA” over the past decade.

The district’s 2024-25 accountability summary reported that students earned 4,056 college credits through dual enrollment, generating estimated family savings of more than $600,000. Twenty-one students earned associate degrees. The figures illustrate why the program matters beyond the abstract goal of rigor: college credit earned in high school can reduce future tuition costs, shorten a student’s path to a credential and strengthen applications for college, scholarships or employment.

The model also fits a county where postsecondary planning cannot be limited to one route. Some graduates will pursue four-year degrees; others will enter technical programs, apprenticeships, military service or work. Batten’s superintendent’s message for the 2026-27 school year calls for each student to graduate with options, including college, employment, the military, and community service.

Batten noted that the business community has a role here as well. Employers can help the district identify emerging skills, provide job-shadowing and work-based learning opportunities, supply mentors and explain what entry-level applicants actually need. Schools, in turn, can help employers understand the time, safety, supervision and educational requirements that make a student placement meaningful rather than symbolic.

Affordability threatens the workforce strategy

The sharpest warning in Batten’s remarks concerned the people needed to sustain the academic progress he celebrated.

Asked what keeps him awake about teacher recruitment and retention, Batten initially drew laughter by saying employees continue to request a Chick-fil-A and a Target. Then he named the more serious answer twice: “affordability.”

Most teacher salaries are tied to a state schedule, limiting how much a local district can independently change base pay. Chatham County commissioners and the Board of Education support a local salary supplement, and Batten said Chatham remains among the state’s leading districts on that measure. Yet local housing and living costs are rising faster than the compensation available to many school employees.

The result, he said, is that the district increasingly imports workers from Alamance, Lee, Wake and other neighboring counties. That creates a vulnerability. An employee who drives into Chatham every day may leave when a comparable position opens closer to home, particularly if buying or renting near the workplace remains out of reach.

“When you import your staff, they’re most likely to find a place closer to home if they can’t move here,” Batten said.

The issue stretches beyond teachers. A school system depends on bus drivers, instructional assistants, child-nutrition employees, custodians, maintenance workers, nurses, counselors, technology specialists and administrators. A local supplement may strengthen recruitment, but it does not by itself create available housing, shorten commutes or offset every increase in transportation and child-care costs.

One Chatham includes a goal of retaining at least 90% of staff, Batten said. Reaching that target in a volatile labor market will require the district to understand not only why employees accept jobs, but why they stay or leave. Compensation is central, but workplace conditions, leadership, professional development, workload and a sense of belonging also influence retention.

Batten thanked the Chamber and Chatham Education Foundation for helping welcome roughly 80 new employees in August with packets representing local businesses and organizations. The gesture was modest compared with a salary or housing payment, but he presented it as part of a broader relationship strategy: new employees should quickly see that the wider community values their presence.

For local leaders, the warning about affordability creates a policy connection that cannot be contained within the school budget. Housing approvals, transportation planning and economic-development decisions affect the labor pool available to schools. If the county adds jobs and residents faster than it adds attainable housing and transportation options, the school system may face higher enrollment at the same time it struggles to place adults in classrooms and support roles.

Growth demands plans that can bend

Chatham County’s growth makes long-range planning necessary, but Batten argued that it also makes rigid assumptions dangerous.

School systems typically plan on longer timelines than private employers. New buildings, attendance boundaries, academic programs and staffing pipelines can take years to design and implement. Yet a company’s plans may change, a development may advance faster or slower than expected, and an emerging industry may require different skills by the time students graduate.

Batten used VinFast as an example. Five years earlier, he said, local discussions included how the district might expose middle school students to curriculum connected with the electric-vehicle manufacturer’s planned Chatham County operation. Subsequent uncertainty surrounding the project demonstrates the risk of tying an educational strategy too narrowly to one company or forecast.

“Maintaining the flexibility for what could be next becomes paramount when we think about the growth that’s coming ahead,” he said.

That does not mean schools should ignore major employers. It means programs should build transferable foundations – literacy, numeracy, problem-solving, communication, technical fluency and the ability to learn new systems – while offering career pathways broad enough to adapt as employers and technology change.

Facilities planning faces a similar test. Growth may not arrive evenly across the county, and the location and pace of residential development can shift. The district must coordinate with county planners and commissioners, monitor enrollment and housing data, evaluate capacity by attendance area and communicate when projections change. Flexibility may involve additions, renovations, new schools, revised attendance boundaries or different uses of existing space. Each option has financial and community consequences.

Safety and belonging remain prerequisites

Batten said another element of One Chatham will carry forward: building safe and welcoming school environments.

He framed safety and belonging not as secondary concerns but as conditions required for instruction to begin. A student who feels physically unsafe, disconnected or unsupported is less prepared to take academic risks, concentrate and persist through difficult work. The same principle applies to employees whose working conditions affect whether they remain in the profession.

The current strategic plan reflects that breadth. It organizes more than 100 strategies across five priority areas: curriculum and innovation; student health and safety; faculty and staff; facilities and infrastructure; and communications and information sharing. The structure recognizes that academic performance is linked to issues outside a lesson plan.

That connection was reinforced by the State of Chatham data presented before Batten’s conversation. He pointed to infant mortality, health-care access and mobility as examples of conditions in a child’s life that influence whether the student can thrive in school. Schools cannot solve those issues alone, but they encounter their effects daily.

Nonprofit organizations, health providers, local governments, families and businesses therefore become part of the education system’s support network even when they do not operate classrooms. The practical work can include access to food and health care, attendance support, after-school programming, transportation, mental-health services, family outreach and assistance during periods of housing instability.

The challenge for the next plan will be turning the broad language of partnership into assigned responsibilities and measurable results. “Community support” is difficult to evaluate unless the district specifies what problem a partnership is meant to solve, who will do the work, how access will be provided and what evidence will show that students benefited.

Batten asks businesses to examine their connection

Batten closed with a direct invitation to the business leaders in the room. Chatham County Schools is the county’s largest employer, he said, although becoming the largest was never a district goal. Its economic role is indirect but substantial: employees buy fuel, shop, eat locally and support activities that bring families into different parts of the county.

The deeper relationship, however, should not be reduced to schools asking businesses for donations.

“That partnership is two-way,” Batten said. “We don’t just want it to be singular as far as we ask and people give.”

He asked business leaders to examine their own plans and identify ways to connect with school employees, students and families. The right approach will differ by company. A small business may mentor one student, recognize an employee or host a short workplace visit. A larger employer may offer internships, equipment, technical expertise, career presentations or structured work-based learning. Housing, health-care and financial institutions may be able to address barriers that affect employee stability.

Batten directed attendees interested in a deeper connection to speak with Brittany Sandefur of the Chatham Education Foundation or with him. “We are open for business,” he said, before quickly noting the distinction: the school system is not a for-profit entity, and students remain its focus.

That appeal also provides the public with a way to judge the superintendent’s emerging vision. The district is promising to invite participation as it develops its next five-year goals during the 2026-27 school year. Meaningful engagement will require more than presenting a completed plan. Families, employees, students, municipal leaders, nonprofits and employers will need opportunities to identify problems, weigh tradeoffs and see how their input changes the final document.

The next One Chatham must translate vision into choices

Batten’s first State of Chatham appearance as superintendent offered optimism supported by new results. The graduation rate is rising. District proficiency exceeds the state average. Virginia Cross Elementary has built a six-year record of exceeding expected growth. Students are earning college credits before finishing high school, and individual educators are winning national recognition.

It also exposed the central tension confronting Chatham County Schools. The district must preserve and expand those gains while the surrounding community grows more expensive and less predictable. Staff members who cannot live near their schools are harder to retain. New development can change enrollment patterns. Economic projects can shift before specialized programs are built. Student needs are influenced by housing, health, transportation and family circumstances outside the district’s direct control.

The current One Chatham plan created a common structure for work across academics, safety, staffing, facilities and communication. The next plan will have to make sharper choices: which gains must be protected, where outcomes remain uneven, what the district can afford, what county government must fund and which responsibilities require outside partners.

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