On April 12, Guy B. Phillips Middle School principal Tiffany Cheshire walked into a meeting with her supervisor. She was told there were people who wanted to speak with her about Phillips' performance — and she was prepared for something pretty contentious.
But, when she came around the corner for what was supposed to be her meeting, she saw students lined up and down the hallway.
Still not knowing what the commotion was about, she started to jog.
"If I've got a tunnel of people, let's have some fun with it," Cheshire said.
She was completely surprised when she walked into the gym and saw Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Nyah Hamlett standing before her. Hamlett then announced that Cheshire had won the district's Principal of the Year award and brought out her husband and two children.
“I try to make sure I still got something left for them and I’m not completely empty from pouring into other kids at school… Our priority is making sure that our kids also feel like they're important to us and their priority,” she said. “Them getting to be there and getting to see that meant the world to me.”
Cheshire began working in education in 2005 as an elementary Spanish teacher. She then went to get to get her master's in school administration from UNC.
While she was in graduate school, she worked as a substitute teacher and a principal intern. After she graduated, she served as an assistant principal in the Alamance-Burlington School System. She began working at Phillips in 2017 as an assistant principal and became principal in 2022.