Trinity Wins Charlotte's Best Award
October 27, 2025
Trinity Episcopal School was voted one of Charlotte's best private schools in the Charlotte Observer's “Charlotte's Best” awards for 2025.
Trinity received the silver award in the private school category – an appropriate award given the silver anniversary Trinity celebrated in the 2024-25 school year.
"This recognition shines a light on our staculty and the community that rallied behind them,” said Head of School Imana Sherrill. “Thank you to everyone who voted and who is a champion for Trinity day in and day out. This is your win, too!”
The results of the 2025 voting were announced on Sunday, Oct. 26. To read more, click here.
Trinity Unveils the "True North" Campaign
September 23, 2025
Trinity Episcopal School is charting a course for its future with the launch of its new capital campaign — True North: Scholarship, Spirituality, Diversity, and Trinity Episcopal’s Next 25 Years.
True North, Trinity’s fourth capital campaign, was launched Friday, Sept. 19, in a celebration marking 25 years since the school’s ribbon-cutting.
“It’s our turn to ensure that the values that shaped the first 25 years continue to guide the next 25 years,” said John Laughlin, co-chair of the campaign along with Sommers Errington.
The priorities of the True North campaign are:
- Increased compensation for faculty and staff, and strengthening Trinity’s financial support program, both of which will be accomplished through an enhanced endowment
- Capital projects that will bring new technologies and capabilities to classrooms and other learning spaces around the campus
The launch of True North’s public phase was the culmination of nearly 2 years of work by the campaign steering committee.
“When we canvassed current and former parents and the community at large, everybody was very focused on maintaining and preserving what makes Trinity wonderful,” said Errington.
To achieve True North’s goals, the campaign will seek to raise $5 million.
Head of School Imana Sherrill announced at the launch celebration that $4.1 million had already been pledged toward True North.
Among the guests who helped mark this new chapter for Trinity was the founding Head of School, the Rev. Louis “Smokey” Oats, who led Trinity until his retirement in June 2011. “Father Smokey” reflected on the many pivotal moments that shaped Trinity in its early years, including the down-to-the-wire opening of the school as it scrambled to secure occupancy permits from Mecklenburg County, and the many founding families and employees who set Trinity into motion.
”My hope and prayer is that we - each of you who are now players in the life of this school today - will continue to honor the founders through our commitment to excellence and service and the Trinity Way,” Oats said.
Chief Advancement Officer Katie Keels applauded the campaign's “remarkable start.”
“Together, we can close this final gap and carry Trinity into its next 25 years,” Keels said. “The path forward for Trinity points in one direction: True North.”
Learn more about True North by clicking here. To hear more from the campaign co-chairs and others, take a moment to watch the following video.
Charting a Path for Teaching AI at Trinity
September 15, 2025
Collaborative learning isn't just for Trinity students — it's also the approach faculty and staff are taking to craft a Trinity-specific policy for artificial intelligence.
"It's not only about how to use AI, but how to prepare students for a world that is unknown to all of us right now," said Assistant Head of School for Academics Stephanie Griffin, who led an all-Trinity faculty and staff workshop on AI.
While there is some discomfort in education circles about AI, Griffin said it was important to "engag(e) in that discomfort" to shape how AI can be instructed.
Griffin's AI workshop took place during an afternoon of professional development that included training in MagicSchool AI. It was the first of a series of planned AI workshops that will take place this school year while an AI task force of faculty and staff members develops guidelines to teaching and learning AI that are aligned with Trinity's mission.
Trinity's time-honored educational philosophy has positioned the school to meet the moment, Griffin said. “The academic excellence that's at our core has given students the learning skills they can transfer into being adept at emerging technologies and having that human connection and commitment to community.”
Just as Trinity's collaborative workshop classroom setting gives students space to build their own knowledge and explore new paths to solve problems, Griffin said they also need space to be uncomfortable with not knowing an answer. "It's a resiliency skill," she said.
In breakout conversations at tables, faculty and staff identified opportunities and challenges ahead as the school crafts its approach to AI. They saw as opportunities:
- Build on Trinity's commitment to humanity
- Measure students' growth and learning beyond traditional academics
- Empower strong-minded humans with flexibility and the ability to think critically
- Sharpen students' communication, leadership dexterity, and independence to grow their discerning minds
- Summon the courage to explore and try, relying on one another to learn together
Challenges that were identified for AI included:
- Difficulty in understanding what is real and what is fake
- AI's focus on the result without real inquiry
- Whose voices are included and excluded in the construction and generation of the large-language model?
- How to handle the enormous access to AI
While those are big unknowns — with more unknowns emerging — Griffin said the school's mission and philosophy will guide the way.
"We don't quite know where we're going, but we can walk together," she said.
8th Grade Advocacy Trip to D.C. Featured in QCityMetro
July 08, 2025
A unique experience for Trinity Middle School students is the annual 8th Grade trip to Washington, D.C.
Unlike most class trips to the nation's capital, the Trinity 8th Grade visit is less of a sightseeing tour and more of an opportunity for students to lobby legislators and others on student-selected legislation ranging from affordable housing to gun violence.
“It's a really great experience,” said Andrew Arriola TES '25, who, along with classmates, studied prescription drug use and identified lawmakers who have sponsored legislation dealing with the topic. “Not all schools get to do this.”
The trip is the capstone to the 8th Grade's Seminar course. QCityMetro took a closer look at the trip in this article.
Spirituality and Diversity Working Hand in Hand at Trinity
July 07, 2025
The following article appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of The Trinity Voice
One of the first things that 5th Grade students' eyes were drawn to when they entered the sanctuary of Temple Beth El in Charlotte was the stained-glass doors of the aron hakodesh (“holy ark”).
As Rabbi Lexi Erdheim shared how her congregation worships and answered students’ questions about the Jewish faith, she opened the rainbow-colored doors where the Torah is stored, and she invited students onto the bimah - or platform - where she unrolled the scroll for them to see.
The visit to the temple was the completion of the grade’s faith studies unit on Judaism. In an earlier unit studying Hinduism, students visited the Hindu Center of Charlotte, climbing the stairs of the temple and taking off their shoes before entering the worship space. When they left, the center’s priests offered holy water and a blessing over the students.
“You feel the floor under your feet, you smell the incense, and it engages all the senses,” said The Rev. Lindsey Peery, Trinity’s Interim Head Chaplain.
Exploring the many faiths in the community is one of the ways Trinity not only nurtures spirituality, but also embraces diversity.
“It's really like two sides of a coin,” Peery said. “Nurturing spirituality and embracing diversity just go together hand in hand.”
Trinity’s commitment to diversity in its many forms - cultural, religious, etc., - was not in response to any modern shift in the broader world, but was a founding core value of the school. Decisions such as where to locate the school were grounded in reflecting the diversity of the community.
Diversity is also an important part of Trinity’s Episcopal identity. As an Episcopal school, Trinity supports every child on their spiritual journey, not toward a particular denomination or faith background, but toward developing compassionate hearts. The Episcopal identity statement, first written in 2013 and updated in 2020, also calls on the school community to foster a sense of belonging in an inclusive environment, and strive for equity, justice, and love of neighbor.
“We’re not training up students to be Episcopalians, but to become more open, more accepting, more understanding, and more empathetic as they become young adults,” Peery said.
Perhaps the most visible displays of the connection between Trinity’s spirituality and diversity core values are the K-8 Chapel services that celebrate community groups and feature speakers from other faith traditions. Rabbi Erdheim was one such guest, leading a Chapel service during Jewish High Holy Days. Another Chapel service brought the festival of Diwali to life through song and dance.
Erdheim said the temple visit and Chapel “provide a safe space to ask questions and to build bridges across differences… and find solidarity in our shared values.”
Even within the Christian faith, Chapel services show the breadth of diversity of worship styles, such as the music-filled Sankofa Chapel each year during Black History Month. Trinity’s Latino families have led Chapel celebrations of their cultures during Hispanic Heritage Month, and in recent years, the student GSA affinity group has organized a Pride Chapel.
“It’s beautiful the way we involve families and students, (giving) that opportunity to see yourself reflected to celebrate your heritage,” Peery said. “I can only imagine how it helps children make connections. I don’t think there’s any other school doing this the way we are in Charlotte.”
Ayeola Elias, Trinity’s Director of Diversity, Equity, and Belonging, said those Chapel services are powerful opportunities that empower students to feel like they belong, whether it’s on campus or in the community.
“We get to experience spirituality through their eyes,” she said. "It’s a privilege. We all get to experience it and become better humans.”
Faith studies classes continue the exploration of diverse world faiths and how they build upon other faiths. 8th Grade’s world religions class included a new project in which students created a spiritual life map that includes a fact about a different faith tradition and how it is reflected in their own faith or spiritual journey.
Even if a student does not come from a faith background, Peery said, they can still be on a spiritual journey that can be nurtured and include traits that are found in other faiths.
“Spirituality is this constant growth toward what we were meant to be,” Elias added.
Beyond Chapels and faith studies classes, spirituality is a critical piece of the four essential questions that frame Trinity’s diversity, equity, and belonging practices: Who am I? Who are you? Who are we together? What are we called to do?
Elias said those questions reinforce a person’s uniqueness as part of God’s creation, love of neighbor, and our shared values. “Your experience is part of my responsibility,” she said. “Scripture asks, 'Are you your brother’s keeper?’ Yes, we belong to one another.”
Students take on that responsibility through service learning in every grade - another layer of spirituality and diversity being interwoven. When a student delivers a meal to a neighbor or spends time with someone with different abilities, “you’re learning about someone else’s situation and building empathy,” Peery said, “and you’re called to action.”
“When you think about Jesus’ greatest commandment - love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind - and the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself, that is being inclusive, that is embracing your neighbors and embracing diversity,” she said.
“It’s a calling from God.”
