PITTSBORO — The Chatham County Retired School Personnel (CCRSP), a branch of the North Carolina Retired School Personnel (NCRSP), hosted its End of Year Celebration from 1 to 3 p.m. on June 15 at the Chatham Community Library in the Holmes Family Meeting Room.
CCRSP and NCRSP are respectively a branch and division of the larger North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), whose main goal is to advocate and provide support to future, beginner and retired educators and other education personnel.
“We know that public education is extremely important,” Dawn Streets, a member of NCRSP, said. “And even as retirees, we have a passion for the work of public schools.”
CCRSP conducts four meetings throughout the year, once in September, October, February and May, as well as the annual End of Year Celebration to reflect on and celebrate the year’s work.
In attendance was the executive board — President Edris Glover, Vice President Henry Foust, Secretary Mattie J. Fox and Treasurer Patricia Regan — NCRSP Chief Lobbyist Colleen Lanier, some of CCRSP members, and 2002 CCRSP Riley C. Fields Scholarship recipient Kristen Breedlove, among others.
Glover said that the branch regularly helps beginning teachers, showing them moral support.
“Because teaching today, it's not like it was when we were in the classrooms,” she said. “We wanted them to know that there's somebody there for them and with them.”
The organization did a school supply drive for beginning teachers in February 2023 where they set up supplies — from pencils, books, hand sanitizers and more — on tables at the Chatham County Agriculture & Conference Center, gave teachers bags and let them fill them up with as many supplies as they wanted, Glover said.
Glover recognized other initiatives and events the association has conducted throughout the 2022-2023 school year, including helping exceptional children, as well as recognized members who have had perfect attendance this year.
Foust proceeded by speaking about the CCRSP Riley C. Fields Scholarship — a $500 scholarship awarded to graduating Chatham County high school seniors who hope to pursue a career in education through teaching, social work, administration and counseling — and said the association was able to award three this year, he said.
Three students across Northwood, Chatham Central and Jordan-Matthews High Schools received the scholarship this year.
Glover said the association will be able to give out five scholarships next year, one for each of the recipients this year, as well as one from Seaforth and one from Chatham School of Science and Engineering.
Breedlove, who graduated from Northwood High School in 2002, received the scholarship, which helped her pay for her college education at UNC Greensboro.
She now works as an assistant principal at Siler City Elementary and said it felt full circle to be in attendance with her former teachers at the End of Year Celebration.
“It's nice to be a product of Chatham, and now working in Chatham,” she said.
CCRSP has 51 members as of the week of June 12, six of which are new members, Glover said. One of the division’s goals for next year is for it to reach 60 members.
After the presentation by the executive board, the attendees were able to enjoy an ice cream social and mingle.
“We're all here basically because we're supporters of public education,” RuthAnn Taylor Peterson, member of CCRSP, said. “We've lived through seeing the importance … We want to support our educators, our future educators, and help look after our retirees.”