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Last year at Moss Hill Elementary School, a small group of students began meeting with a simple purpose: learn the tools on their iPads well enough to help others use them better. What started as the Moss Hill Tech Team has now grown into Student Innovation Teams in every school across Lenoir County Public Schools.

The idea is straightforward, but the impact is anything but small. Students are not just completing assignments on a device. They are building presentations from the ground up, animating ideas, troubleshooting problems, and walking into classrooms ready to support both peers and teachers.

Education leaders from across southeastern North Carolina gathered at Lenoir County Public Schools Wednesday for a regional meeting focused on collaboration, innovation and advancing student success.

The meeting brought together superintendents from North Carolina’s Southeast Region, along with Southeast Education Alliance Executive Director Kathy Spencer, to discuss shared priorities, regional initiatives and strategies to strengthen public education across the region.

Inside classrooms, gyms and media centers across Lenoir County Public Schools, science is not just a subject. It is a hands-on journey fueled by curiosity, experimentation and discovery.

That journey was on full display during the district’s annual Celebration of Science, where 82 students presented 53 projects that advanced from individual school science fairs. The projects reflected weeks of research, testing and data analysis, showcasing the depth of scientific  thinking taking place across the district.

Lily Hartsell, a 7th grade history teacher at E.B. Frink Middle School and Lenoir County Public Schools’ Beginning Teacher of the Year, has been named one of 27 statewide finalists for the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching’s 2026 Burroughs Wellcome Fund NC Beginning Teacher of the Year Award.

Whether it’s social studies class or math class, STEM instruction centers on student engagement, where questions are encouraged and answers are often rooted out collaboratively. This inquiry-based learning engenders, as Principal Dr. Moon said, “an intellectual curiosity for students” that not only makes a class more meaningful but can also enhance the way they relate to school and to learning over a lifetime.

More than $40,000 in grant awards will allow Lenoir County Public School educators to provide special learning opportunities for thousands of students this school year, all thanks to the community’s support of annual fundraising events championed by the Lenoir County Education Foundation and its parent organization, the Lenoir County Chamber of Commerce.