A beloved East Chapel Hill High School counselor’s compassion and steady presence have helped countless students feel seen and supported
By Laura Zimmerman Wayne | Photography by John Michael Simpson
You’ve probably seen it on social media – a “yellow” is someone who brings light into your life. Lately, I’ve made it a point to notice the yellows around me: the people in Chapel Hill who brighten our days with a wave, a smile, a kind word. In this column, I’ll continue to spotlight those everyday rays of sunshine – the ones who lift us up when we need it most. Because the world could always use a little more light – Laura Zimmerman Whayne
In 2011, my firstborn, Hayden, was entering East Chapel Hill High School as a freshman. It was difficult at the start when we discovered he had a rare condition called hypogammaglobulinemia, an immune system disorder characterized by low levels of antibodies in the body. Hayden was under the care of Dr. John Hipps, an amazing immunologist and oncologist at UNC Lineberger, and he went about his days fighting extreme fatigue and sickness and missing school to get infusions. We set up a meeting with Hayden’s school counselor, teachers, principal Eileen Tully and the nurse, Debbie LaMay, to discuss getting a 504 plan for him. When you go to ECHHS, you’re assigned a counselor based on your last name. It’s random, yet maybe having school counselor Jessica Harris in our lives was not random at all. We will forever be grateful that our last name fell between “Si and Z.”
Jessica grew up in Durham, attended Southern High School and married her high school sweetheart, Michael Copeland. She went to Winston-Salem State University for her undergraduate degree in English and taught the same subject at Chapel Hill High School. Wanting to further her education and career, she pursued a master’s degree in English at the University of Delaware. When she returned, she wanted to do more than teach English.
When fellow CHHS teacher Joanne McClelland pointed out how good Jessica was with all the kids – how they gravitated toward her classroom, wanting to talk to her – she suggested Jessica should also get her master’s in counseling. By the following year, Jessica was teaching English and getting her master’s in counseling at North Carolina Central University.
Jessica got her first counseling job at Southern High School and then moved on to Myers Park High School in Charlotte. She was enjoying her new adventure in the Queen City until her mother, who had custody of her nephew, Justin, got very sick, and Jessica and Michael made the decision to move back so that she could tend to her mother and nephew while working at ECHHS as the school counselor. I asked her if it was hard to take on this responsibility, but she said that there was never a doubt in her mind about what she wanted to do, no matter how hard it was to juggle sometimes. Since 2002, ECHHS has been her home.
Jessica is the kind of woman who instantly makes you feel comfortable and loved. I was in her office many times as Hayden navigated his illness, and we were a team, making sure that he had the most help possible. During that first meeting, I remember having to use the word “disability” out loud and choking up. I remember seeing tears slowly rolling down Jessica’s face. I remember giving Jessica a big hug and instantly knowing that “we” would get through it. Jessica had this special ability that made you feel like “all would be OK,” and it was.
In 2016, Hayden was at Virginia Tech, and his health was much better. Meanwhile, my daughter, LewLew, entered ECHHS that year. However, she became very sick after her first year with a virus that attacked her intestines, and she was declining rapidly, unable to keep any food down. She had a feeding tube and was using a wheelchair shortly after. I remember tears the day we met with Jessica, who played an integral part in helping us get the support we needed – even homeschooling when LewLew was too weak to go to school. I will never forget the day before Lew was scheduled to have the first of many hard intestinal surgeries, and Jessica and her golden heart helped get “Team LewLew” T-shirts to 100 students in a show of support.
So often, those who help many others are battling things that few ever know. Jessica faced her husband’s Parkinson’s disease diagnosis in 2014, but you would have never known that anything was amiss at all. Jessica told me that the minute she walks into the building, she checks her worries at the door and just wants to be the best that she can be for her students.
After all of these years, Jessica reflected on falling in love with her counselor position because she was able to really get to know her students. She had this gift for making her students – 230 each year, and 65 of them seniors – feel heard and special.
Jessica remembers writing a recommendation letter for a graduating student around 2010. This student had been through a lot, and Jessica wanted to touch on that in her letter. This student’s father wanted to ensure that his son would have a good experience applying to colleges and came to speak to Jessica, who decided to share the letter with the father to help ease his nerves. After reading her letter, the father said nothing, got up and left. Jessica, with her huge heart, was so worried she had said something wrong.
A few days later, the father came back to her office and apologized for leaving so abruptly. He had been so overwhelmed by her letter that he went to his car and cried. You see, five years prior, his daughter had been killed in a car accident, so his son had written about the impact of losing his sister in his questionnaire for Jessica. The father read what Jessica wrote and realized it was the first time he had cried since she passed away. He returned to thank her for such a wonderful letter that touched him so greatly. Jessica said she realized that day what an impact she had on her students’ lives by being in them and writing these letters of recommendation. I thought for a second and took that in, how her letters of recommendation were truly gifts for both of my kids – and their mom – who couldn’t have done it without her.
I asked Jessica to share more moments that made an impact on her. She said, “There are so many!” and told me about these baskets overflowing with every note and drawing from her students over all of these years, something I had noticed from all the time spent in her office. Jessica told me about how one student came up to her and said that while she was really struggling, Jessica “being kind to her made it OK for her to stay at ECHHS.” She shared that another student saw her later in life and said, “You see, Ms. Harris! I turned out OK just like you said I would.”
What message could be more powerful or more needed for today’s kids, who navigate so much pressure? Jessica spreads her words of encouragement like a fairy sprinkling sparkles everywhere she goes, sparkles that do not ever fade. Jessica’s impact is a great gift to so many. I will forever be grateful for the serendipitous circumstances that led to her entering our lives and never leaving them. I have a feeling that many reading this will have their own stories about how Jessica impacted their lives.
