Welcome to our new Directors!

We are happy to welcome Matt Sears as our new Director of Partnerships and Dr. Chris Soto as our new WHOLE Schools Director of School-Based Wellbeing. In his role, Matt will be developing and leading new strategies for growing enrollment in DPS and building strategic business partnerships. Chris will be leading the WHOLE Schools Movement work to strengthen mental health and wellness supports for students and educators across DPS.

Both Matt and Chris are current DPS parents and former educators.

More about Chris:

Chris' passion for mental and emotional well-being is a constant across his career. He is a passionate advocate for structured opportunities (for both children and adults) to develop emotional agility. He has an Ed.M. from Harvard University in Human Development and Psychology, an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania, and was recently licensed as a Clinical Mental Health Counselor in North Carolina. Chris previously worked as the Social Emotional and Mental Health Coordinator. He comes to DPSF believing that his best two traits are curiosity and empathy. Chris, the parent of two children, considers parenting to be the centerpiece of his life and learns cool new stuff from his kids every day.

More about Matt:
Matt has dedicated two decades to working with public school students, teachers, principals, and community leaders. His experience includes teaching for seven years at Hillside and New Tech high schools, consulting across North Carolina and with national networks of schools, and serving for eight years as a member of the DPS School Board. Matt also served as the Director of Educational Programs at Duke TIP starting in 2017. He resigned from his school board post earlier this month to avoid any potential or perceived conflicts of interest.

As Matt shared in a moving letter to friends and neighbors earlier this month, “My resignation comes as a part of a needed career move with my position at Duke expiring and my desire to more directly support public school education in Durham and beyond.”

He went on to add, “The success of our schools and district have always come from us working TOGETHER.  All of us, working together.  Public education is not a zero-sum game--where some students must lose so that others can win.  When we work together we are the tide that raises all ships in our educational harbor.  I look forward to continuing to work with you, in new capacities, so that we continue to be that rising tide for all of our students in Durham Public Schools.

Well said, and welcome Matt and Chris!