From the first moment the visiting accreditation team arrived on campus for the three-day visit, the welcoming, caring, considerate and loving school culture of Brainerd Baptist School was evident. Incredibly loyal and appreciative parents, interested and supportive board members, delightful, engaged and happy students, a devoted, cohesive and competent faculty, and a committed and dedicated leadership team all presented Brainerd Baptist School in a most positive manner. With a healthy enrollment, a sound financial position, innovative programming, and legions of community supporters, Brainerd Baptist School finds itself in an enviable position in a highly competitive independent school market in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A focus on continuous school improvement, servant leadership, and student achievement distinguishes Brainerd Baptist from other educational options. In a faith-based school, parents view teachers as living out their individual calling and vocation in the classroom. In a Christian school setting, students at Brainerd Baptist not only benefit from a top-notch educational experience, but they also acquire values and a moral education which provide an exceptional foundation for their future. The visiting team was clearly impressed with the warm, friendly, wholesome and positive culture that permeates every aspect of Brainerd Baptist School.
Though I boast of no previous theatre experience, I am now convinced of the absolute necessity of such activities within an elementary school program. Such productions provide an excellent platform from which children can gain hands-on experience in collaboration and grit.
I like to say that teaching elementary students is such a neat experience because, their minds are like little sponges, absorbing so much! However, we are faced with the challenge of providing a high quality academic curriculum with the understanding that you have a limited amount of time for sustained attention! As educators, we are always trying to seek the most effective way to teach our students while also providing the best possible learning environment for them. For years, we have implemented movement and various seating options to help our students with sustained attention, but there is still, room for improvement.
I hope you can see how your involvement in our fundraisers has a DIRECT and IMMEDIATE impact on your child. I know that it can be a bit of a hassle, but all the time and effort you put into it is worth it in the end! We are so blessed by our families believing in what we do and supporting it.
Our school year is off to a smooth start. Our enrollment is up from last year, and we are excited about all the new families that are now a part of the BBS family. Now that our students (and parents) are in a routine, we have turned our focus to a pretty major event that will be happening in November.
As I have written previously, I am convinced that one of the most important aspects of my job is hiring the right teacher to join the faculty of our school. I echo this theme each year when I write this blog post, but it really is true. Identifying the teachers that align with our culture and mission are critical to the sustained success we have enjoyed at Brainerd Baptist School. I have often joked that "retirement and babies" are most often the culprits for change in our faculty, and this has once again proven to be the case this spring.
One of the really cool things about our school is the desire to consistently look for opportunities for our students to learn in different ways. Our teachers do an amazing job of creating lessons that model best practices in education, which we believe are student-centered and engaging. 5th grade students are getting to once again experience something new for them, a unique day that we are calling C.A.T. Day. C.A.T. stands for curiosity, adventure, and thought and embodies what we hope our students will experience as they leave campus today. Two years ago my two sons got to experience something new at their high school called "T-term". The idea behind this was to provide the students with several options of various experiences/learning outside the classroom. Students were able to choose from various classes/experiences that interested them and then spend time doing those things. The first year was huge a success, and I enjoyed watching my younger son experience it again this year, as McCallie fine tuned it even more.
Step into an American preschool classroom today and you are likely to be bombarded with what we educators call a print-rich environment, every surface festooned with alphabet charts, bar graphs, word walls, instructional posters, classroom rules, calendars, schedules, and motivational platitudes—few of which a 4-year-old can “decode,” the contemporary word for what used to be known as reading.
So our first day at Burton 4H Camp is in the books. Other than the weather not being as warm as we would have liked, it has been a phenomenal day. The programming and classes that our students have been able to be a part of have been amazing (as you have probably seen if you have been on Facebook or Instagram).
What is your bucket list of sporting events? I wrote a similar post to this almost ten years ago. For me personally, this week is the best in all of sports (even better than SEC football!). You have the conclusion of my absolute favorite sporting event that really does drive us all mad - March Madness (how's your bracket look!?) combined with the beauty and pageantry that is The Masters, combined with opening day of Major League Baseball....and just for fun, both the NBA and NHL are in the final weeks of their regular seasons making both of them somewhat interesting. I would like to list my personal "bucket list" of 10 items that I would like to experience in my lifetime.
