Claudia Acevedo Sanhueza is a bilingual communications professional with Durham Public Schools, where she currently serves in the Office of Public Affairs. For over 11 years, she has served the Durham community across grades K–12 in a variety of roles, working closely with multicultural and multilingual families to strengthen access, trust, and meaningful engagement in public education. Her work spans family engagement, community partnership building, and culturally responsive communication.

Claudia believes that communication is not just about language, but about building authentic, genuine connections with families and honoring their voice and experiences, recognizing that parents are essential partners in their children’s education. She has collaborated with schools, district leaders, and community partners across Durham to educate families and ensure they have access to clear, meaningful information on decisions that impact their students. Claudia is deeply committed to the Durham community and to supporting student success across the district.

She enjoys spending time outdoors and sharing adventures with her husband and their Goldendoodle, Mr. Darcy. A lover of the arts, she often attends plays, operas, and symphonies. Her faith in Christ guides her values and inspires her commitment to serving others with care and intention.

Jacqueline “Jackie” Ellis dedicated more than three decades to public school systems across North Carolina, establishing herself as a respected educator and leader committed to instructional development.

Her journey in education began in the classroom, teaching middle school students in Pitt and Guilford counties. This foundation in direct teaching informed her subsequent leadership roles as she transitioned into administration. Ellis served as a middle and high school principal in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, where her impact on the school community was acknowledged.

Moving into district-level administration, Ellis held senior roles within the Durham Public Schools system before expanding her expertise to the Wake County Public School System. In Wake County, she took on increasing responsibility, including serving as Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources, Western Area Superintendent, and Middle School Director. She ultimately concluded her lengthy professional career as the Chief of Schools for the Wake County Public School System.

Ellis’s academic foundation includes her status as a North Carolina Teaching Fellow, a bachelor’s degree in Middle Grades Education from East Carolina University, and a Master of School Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Even after retiring from her senior administrative position, Jackie Ellis remains deeply engaged in shaping the future of education in North Carolina. She continues to champion educator development, mentoring new school leaders and serving on the NC Teaching Fellows Advisory Board, ensuring her decades of experience benefit the next generation of educators.

Turquoise LeJeune Parker is a proud two-time graduate of North Carolina Central University—the premier, illustrious, and greatest Historically Black College and University. With more than 14 years of experience in education, she has devoted her career to teaching and empowering students in Durham Public Schools and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. She currently serves as the Media Coordinator for Lakewood Elementary School. 

In June 2016, Turquoise, alongside 13 fellow public school educators—including her husband—engaged in an act of civil disobedience to advocate for the equitable education that all children and educators deserve.

What began in 2015 as a small classroom initiative to provide meals for her students has since grown into the Parker’s Professors Foodraiser—a powerful, community-driven movement that has raised over $632,810.36 to date. The Foodraiser now serves more than 4,000 students at the 12 Elementary Schools in Durham Public Schools that have a 93% or higher Free and Reduced Meal rate.  This initiative provides a bag of groceries for every student at 12 elementary schools during Winter and Spring Break who rely on free or reduced-price lunch.

A passionate advocate for education, Turquoise has been invited to speak as a guest lecturer at numerous universities and has been featured in major media outlets, including The Washington Post, CNN, Good Morning America, and ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, where she was honored as “Person of the Week,” among many others. Parker is the recipient of the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award and Medallion from President Biden, the 2023 Mid Eastern Athletic Association Conference Distinguished Alumni of the Year and the CREED Educator of the Year. She is also a respected voice in education policy, currently serving as the NEA Director for North Carolina, and is a Board of Directors member with the North Carolina Association of Educators, the National Education Association, and several advisory boards across various organizations.

Turquoise lives by and draws strength from her faith, her spirit dances by the principles of Jeremiah 29:11 and Romans 8:28. Above all, she treasures her most important roles: wife to fellow NCCU Alum, Donald Parker III and Momma to Madame and Donald IV. The Parker family resides in Durham, North Carolina.

Michael Yarbrough is a communications professional with nearly four decades’ experience in writing, communications, public relations, and marketing, 25 of which were spent in public schools communications roles.

As a reporter for The Herald-Sun newspaper in Durham, Yarbrough chronicled the merger of the former city and county school districts into what became Durham Public Schools in the early 1990s.

After several years in corporate communications and as a grant writer for public education initiatives, Yarbrough joined Durham Public Schools in 1998 as a public information officer in the Office of Public Affairs for 12 years. He then led communications for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s (NCDPI) Race to the Top federal grant for four years.

Yarbrough retired from the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) Communications Department in 2023, after nine years as a senior administrator supporting internal and external communications for Wake’s Academics Department, Office of Equity Affairs, and special district-wide events, along with managing communications for school crises. Since retiring, he has worked as a writer and editor on a contract basis with several local organizations.

Yarbrough holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a former President of the North Carolina School Public Relations Association (NCSPRA), and a member of that organization’s Board of Directors for 15 years. He received more than 40 awards from NCSPRA, along with three awards from the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA), recognizing his public schools communications work at DPS, NCDPI, and WCPSS.