District: Procedural 'gaps' led to students being left out of Chapel Hill High School yearbook

Officials with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School system said ‘gaps in the school’s internal procedures and checks’ caused a dozen students to be left out of a high school yearbook. 

In May, WRAL reported that 12 students with disabilities at Chapel Hill High School were left out of the “portrait and name” section of the yearbook.

According to the school district, this was not intentional.

In a letter to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools community, Superintendent, Dr. Rodney Trice explained what happened:

• The initial data pull for the yearbook publisher and photography company took place in August 2025. At that time, district and school staff were becoming familiar with a new student information system, which was being implemented across North Carolina’s public school districts for the first time.

• In August, the data pull did not properly assign grade levels to a group of students.

• Because no grade level was assigned, those students were categorized in a way that inadvertently left them out of the standard yearbook database.

• The issue was further compounded during picture day. The impacted students had their pictures taken, but in the system there was no connection to their name or grade level. This represents a critical checkpoint where we can correct missing or incomplete information.

• When pictures were later uploaded for yearbook publishing, the photos were not matched to student records, resulting in being left out of the final production process. There was no mechanism to flag students who had been inadvertently omitted due to incomplete or missing data earlier in the process.

• Additionally, in a small number of cases, families utilized alternative photography arrangements outside of the school’s standard process, and those images were not received by the school, which contributed to the inadvertent omissions.

“I recognize the harm is felt not only by those directly affected, but also by our community, because our district holds high values of inclusivity and belonging,” Dr. Trice wrote in the letter.  “And while I regret that it may not be possible to undo all of the harm, we are working to make things right for the students and families who had every reason to expect proper inclusion, and so that we have an accurate 2026 Chapel Hill High School yearbook.”

Dr. Trice reassured families that:

• The students who were inadvertently left out will receive professionally updated and bound editions of the yearbook.

• All Chapel Hill High School students can have their yearbook updated and re-bound by returning it to the school by close of business on Tuesday, June 23. The school will ship your book to the publisher, where it will be updated and re-bound, and then sent back so that we can return it to you. (This means you will get your same book back, with certain pages updated.)

• All Chapel Hill High School students who ordered a 2026 yearbook will receive professionally produced insert pages that will be mailed to your home address.

The school district said they will work to improve their internal communication procedures to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

“We have learned from this; we are working to make it right,” Dr. Trice wrote. “And my pledge to you moving forward is that we will ensure our yearbooks, our schools and our CHCCS community are shining examples of inclusion and belonging.”