A special farewell from the WHOLE Schools team

When the WHOLE Schools Movement began in 2022, we started with a simple but important question: What does a Durham public school look like where everyone in the school building has the resources and support they need for thriving mental and emotional health?

Over the past four years, that question has guided a remarkable community effort across all of Durham’s public schools.

Together with educators, students, families, school leaders, healthcare partners, and community organizations, we worked to build spaces and opportunities centered around wellness, belonging, connection, and care. Through the WHOLE Schools Fund, Mental Health Ambassadors, Community Education, and Model Schools work, we saw schools create innovative wellness practices that reflected the strengths and needs of their own communities.

We witnessed educators building peer support networks and creating restorative spaces for students and staff. We saw schools launch wellness rooms, identity-based support groups, mindfulness practices, family engagement opportunities, and new approaches to community care. We watched students and educators step into leadership and advocate for environments where wellbeing could be part of everyday school life.

Most importantly, this work reminded us that wellness cannot live in one program alone. It grows through trusted relationships, shared responsibility, and communities willing to invest in the whole child and the whole school community.

DPS Foundation has incubated and championed this work since the beginning. At the end of the 2025-2026 school year, the WHOLE Schools Movement sunset as a standalone initiative. As the WHOLE Schools Movement transitions, we remain deeply grateful for every educator, student, family, partner, and supporter who helped shape this work. Your leadership, creativity, honesty, and care made this initiative possible.

While this chapter is evolving, the work itself continues.

The lessons learned, partnerships built, and commitments made through WHOLE Schools will continue influencing how Durham approaches student wellness, educator support, family engagement, and school-community collaboration moving forward. Key elements of this work will continue through DSPF wellness-centered grantmaking, the DPS-Alliance Health PULSE framework, ongoing community partnerships, community education efforts, and the many school-based practices now embedded across Durham Public Schools.

WHOLE Schools was never only about a single initiative. It was about helping create the conditions for students, educators, and families to thrive together.

Thank you for being part of that work with us.

Sincerely,

WHOLE Schools Team

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