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Letters from Principal Bland

Letters from Principal Bland

Here you will find periodic letters from Principal Bland.  Typically the letters are the introduction to each BeeMail. For the Past BeeMail Newsletter Editions, click here.

  • Busy Day for our Bees!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    We’ve been busy around the Hive since we last spoke! Brandon students returned to field trips, visiting places like the Chattahoochee Nature Center, the Cobb Youth Museum, the Tellus Museum, and the Georgia Aquarium. We kicked off the 2022 Read-a-Thon with visiting author and children’s book illustrator Bethan Woolvin. She joined us via Zoom all the way from Northern England where she read us stories and taught us all how to draw. It was so cool! I love seeing our students reading everywhere I look, with the goal of acquiring 400 minutes of reading this week. The love of literacy at Brandon is alive and well! Ask your student what Mr. Hutson and I have to do when we reach our school-wide goal!

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  • Enjoy Winter Break!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    In the two weeks since we last spoke, we’ve held a Principal Coffee Talk, multiple school field trips, GO Team meetings, a HIVE Rally, Valentine’s Day parties, and IB planning days for our staff, all while providing quality academic instruction. Our students are cruising through their IB units, and before we know it, we’ll be planning for end of year activities like Field Day, Fun Run, state testing and believe it or not, graduation! As a friendly reminder, we are out of school tomorrow through next Monday. Please take this time to get outside, relax, and rejuvenate prior to our return on Tuesday, February 22. We’ve got a long stretch before Spring Break, and we have a lot of material to cover, activities to participate in, and learning goals to accomplish!

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  • Bees are Buzzing!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    It’s been a great few weeks since my last update. At the Scholastic Book Fair, every student at Brandon was able to purchase books in-person, and all proceeds went directly back to our Media Center. To celebrate our 100th day of school, our PC students participated in activities that encouraged them to count to 100, learning about place value along the way. We continue to host school tours that are packed with parents interested in learning more about our neighborhood school. Several grade levels are participating in High Touch High Tech, an in-house field trip tailored around STEM and grade level science standards, and we even resumed some out-of-school field trips! I presented our initial school budget for FY 22/23 to our GO Team and in the coming weeks, we will tailor our staffing and budget to align with our strategic priorities, most notably increasing proficiency in reading and math. Finally, we kicked off the Kids Heart Challenge to help raise money for the American Heart Association. Thank you to our awesome PE teachers for leading the charge! If you have not signed up yet, there is still time to register HERE.

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  • Winter BEEs!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    It’s been a great few weeks since my last update. At the Scholastic Book Fair, every student at Brandon was able to purchase books in-person, and all proceeds went directly back to our Media Center. To celebrate our 100th day of school, our PC students participated in activities that encouraged them to count to 100, learning about place value along the way. We continue to host school tours that are packed with parents interested in learning more about our neighborhood school. Several grade levels are participating in High Touch High Tech, an in-house field trip tailored around STEM and grade level science standards, and we even resumed some out-of-school field trips! I presented our initial school budget for FY 22/23 to our GO Team and in the coming weeks, we will tailor our staffing and budget to align with our strategic priorities, most notably increasing proficiency in reading and math. Finally, we kicked off the Kids Heart Challenge to help raise money for the American Heart Association. Thank you to our awesome PE teachers for leading the charge! If you have not signed up yet, there is still time to register HERE.
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  • VIRTUAL Return to School January 4, 2022

    Greetings Families,

    I hope you have had a wonderful and restful winter break filled with family and relaxation. As you probably know,  APS has made the decision to pivot to virtual learning for the week of January 4 – January 7 in response to the high COVID-19 transmission rate within Fulton and DeKalb counties. Our teachers and staff stand by, ready to deliver the best instruction we can during these upcoming virtual learning days. In order to help us prepare, please see below for important information regarding technology device pickup beginning at 10am TOMORROW (Monday, January 3), as well as virtual learning schedules for this week.

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  • See you in 2022!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    It’s been a great couple of weeks since my last message! I’ve loved seeing our students participate in dress up days for Inclusive Schools Week and our Holiday Cheer Countdown. Last week I hosted a Principal Coffee Talk event (passcode: 1VcF4ER+), which allowed me to update our community on MAP testing, parent conferences, COVID updates, and what’s to come next quarter. We also had an awesome 1920s day in 5th grade, our school tours continue to be packed with incoming families eager to see the great things that are happening at our neighborhood school, and I celebrated my 40th birthday in style; thanks for all of the birthday shout outs!

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  • December is Here!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    I hope you had a restful, relaxing, and fun Thanksgiving break! It was great seeing all of our smiling students back bright and early on Monday morning. The kids were energized and ready to come back to school, see their friends, and finish out 2021 in strong fashion. There is a lot in store for these next three weeks, so it’s important that everyone continues to come to school each day, on time and ready to learn by 7:45am. See below for some updates to help get you through this busy season.

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  • BEE in the Know!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!I trust that everyone had an excellent and enjoyable impromptu long weekend and were able to watch the Braves parade either in person or on live TV. I’ve lived in Atlanta my whole life, and I vividly remember the 1995 World Series celebration and the great run of the 90s. It’s been too long for our city, and I’m proud of America’s team!

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  • Happy Wednesday!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    I hope your week is going well, and that you are getting into the Fall spirit! We closed out the first quarter in style last Friday with the best HIVE rally we’ve ever had! It was a beautiful day to celebrate outside, where we presented awards to students who exhibit the Learner Attributes of the IB Profile and to those with perfect attendance. Students across all grade levels and all homerooms were recognized prior to revealing the winning HIVE color…Orange! Be sure to follow me on Facebook or Twitter for pictures.

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  • BEE in the Know!

    Greeting Parents and Community Members!

    I hope that everyone had a great, restful and family-orientated Fall Break! I’m so glad that we were able to get a few short days away from school to help gear up for the next 6 weeks leading up to Thanksgiving! Yesterday marked the beginning of the second quarter of the 2021-22 school year. I hope that this quarter will be the best one that we’ve had in a long time. Now that our students have learned our processes and procedures, we are set up for success, and we are looking forward to everything that lies ahead for us.

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  • Keeping Up With Our BEE’s

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    A LOT has been happening at the HIVE, and I’m excited for the chance to share it with you! Instructionally, our students have been getting all of the help they need to be successful. Our morning Intervention and WIN block has taken off, we’ve completed the Fall MAP window and shared our preliminary data, and we are excited to begin the 2nd Quarter in just a few short days! MAP data has given us great information to help guide our instruction and tailor our teaching to our students’ needs. Additionally, if our students require additional social, emotional or behavioral help, we’ll hopefully identify it through our BASC-3 Social and Emotional Screener using the triad of data from you (our parents), our staff, and in our upper grades, our students! These needs are often addressed through our bi-monthly CARE team meetings (student support) and SAC meetings (Student Attendance Committee).

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  • Busy Bees!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!
    It’s been a fantastic couple of weeks since we’ve last spoken! Our COVID mitigation strategies are working great, I provided a State of the School update at yesterday’s PTA General meeting, and we successfully rolled out the WIN block for our early intervention and high achieving students. Each day for 45 minutes, 1st-5th graders may receive personalized learning from one of five intervention or gifted teachers. So cool to see in action! As we continue to move through the week, please take a moment to read up on some important updates below.

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  • Bees are Buzzing!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    I’m happy to be back in the BeeMail this week, talking about all things Morris Brandon and outlining what you need to know to help make the coming days successful for our students, staff and families. We’ve had a great start to this week! We are close to completing our Fall administration of the MAP Growth (K-5) and MAP Fluency (K-2) assessments, and our students are showing up each day, whether in person or online, ready to learn and grow. Our COVID mitigation strategies seem to be working as we are seeing a steady decline in the number of positive cases within the building, and as students and staff steadily return to in person learning each day. Please see below for some important notes.

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  • Keeping Our Bees Safe

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    Our school has experienced some positive COVID cases this week, but I am so grateful to have such an incredible group of staff and students who have been able to work together to provide important communication and virtual instruction during some more challenging times.

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  • Bees Are Returning

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    I’m so thrilled to finally reach out to you about the hard work we’ve been doing to prepare for an amazing 2021-22 school year. There are so many new and exciting things coming our way, and I can’t believe that we are so close to Day 1! While you have been enjoying your summers on the beach, at the lake, on vacation, or just hanging out at home with the kids whenever you can, we have been preparing for the safe arrival of more than 800 students across 7 grade levels (yes! We have a Pre-K class!), for 5 days a week of instruction beginning August 5, 2021.

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  • Busy BEEs are Buzzing!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    I trust that everyone had a relaxing, refreshing and rejuvenating Spring Break! And likewise, I hope that the added week of virtual learning went well. It was amazing jumping into virtual classes and seeing the growth that our students exhibited from the early days of virtual learning in August and September until now.  While not ideal, I was blown away by our students focus and attention through a full day of virtual learning. I have witnessed immense growth and our students, teachers and parents should be proud!

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  • Feelings of Spring Flowers!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    As we continue to move forward in 2021, we are also excited to welcome back 55 new face to face students on March 22. This move comes with careful planning and consideration as we look to transition students back to their original homeroom classes. With mitigation strategies already in place, I am happy that we can continue with 4 days a week of face to face instruction while simultaneously continuing to offer quality virtual instruction from a dedicated virtual teacher. We are paying close attention to our capacity dashboard to ensure that students who want to return are in a classroom where everyone can continue to safely socially distance to the greatest extent possible. In order to do this, there are some instances where a child may need to be placed in a different classroom from their 1st semester of virtual learning.

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  • Buzzing Bees

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    Things are going absolutely swell at Morris Brandon and we cannot thank you enough for your patience, support and most importantly, following our safety guidelines. Parents have done an incredible job of self-reporting, keeping students home that are experiencing symptoms, and supporting the school’s decisions for quarantine. Furthermore, I would be remiss if I did not give a shout out to the real superstars, our students, who have done an INCREDIBLE job of wearing their masks, social distancing, and for bringing joy and energy back to our buildings. I’m not going to lie, with each day comes a new challenge, but like I said in August, we will get through this together, and we are!

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  • Bees Buzz Despite the Chill!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for support as we navigated a holiday, into a delayed start right into asynchronous Wednesday. Yesterday, even with a two hour delay, we got all our students in the building on time, adjusted their schedules so everyone still got to go to Specials, everyone still received lunch and we even had time for a 30m recess. We even dismissed using our new carpool app PikMyKid! As we continue to shorten our dismissal time, I want to remind everyone that AM carpool ends promptly at 8am moving forward. Furthermore, we are still beginning dismissal for carpool riders at 2:05 but that does not mean that everyone has to arrive at 2:05! If you are waiting in line a long time, or simply don’t like the congestion, we run carpool all the way until 2:45 and we recommend coming a little later when there are less cars.

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  • Bees Have Heart!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    It was exciting to see our MC students returning on the 100th day of school and our Kindergartners celebrating it just the same! Transitions to virtual learning have been going smoothly and we are continuing to promote our mitigation strategies in everything we do. Please remember that if your child has been impacted by COVID-19 by either testing positive or being a primary contact to someone who has, it is imperative that you keep them home and notify myself and our nurses for next steps. Also, it goes without saying, any students exhibiting symptoms should remain home for at least 24 hours until symptom free. I’m re-attaching our schoolwide Essential Agreements below. These are community pledges that we can all live by! Remember our nurses can be reached at lori.oxman@atlanta.k12.ga.us and brandy.ford@atlanta.k12.ga.us

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  • Wintery Bees!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    It’s an exciting time to be a Brandon Bee! Our PC students have now been back in session for 6 full school days and each day I am happy with the progress we’ve made in improving our logistics and implementing our mitigation strategies. I am also more than excited to welcome back our 3rd-5th grade students that chose face to face learning next week! We also continue to monitor and support all of our students that continue to learn virtually, many of whom are with new teachers. A gentle reminder that tomorrow, February 4, our MC virtual students will transition to their new virtual homerooms with the exception of DLI. This is a great opportunity to get to know new classmates, new teachers and new rules and routines prior to our February 8 kickoff to Phase II of Return and Learn. During these two days prior to February 8, face to face homeroom teachers at the MC will be showing our MC reopening video. You can also watch it HERE. 

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  • COVID-19 Surveillance Testing

    Dear Families and Caregivers,

    Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is continuing its effort to keep everyone in our schools and buildings safe by making COVID-19 Surveillance Testing available to all students and staff. COVID-19 Surveillance Testing is a non-diagnostic test that detects the presence of COVID-19 even in individuals who may be asymptomatic. The benefits of surveillance testing include early detection of positive individuals to limit the spread of COVID-19 in our schools and buildings, as well as, rapid results and notifications for impacted individuals within 24 hours of testing. This allows for parents and staff to make informed decisions regarding healthcare and taking the needed precautions prior to coming to school or work.

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  • Bees are Buzzing in the Hallways!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    It is a big week at MBES as we are able to bring back our K-2 students who opted for face to face learning for the first time this year! Our K-2 virtual students transitioned to new homerooms or began simultaneous learning with their class as is the case with DLI. It was great to see our Primary Campus halls buzzing with little bees for the first time in a long time. Of course, adapting to this new normal comes with growing pains, like that of planning dismissal for close to 250 cars! Each day we are looking to get better and better with our processes and procedures and want to continue to ask for patience and kindness as we work to be the best we can at what we do. Implementing our mitigation strategies is still the most important, and we will never take shortcuts to safety.

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  • Busy Days Ahead for Our Bees!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    Yesterday our teachers reported to the building for the first time since March 13th! It was great to begin seeing our amazing faculty and staff, back in the buildings as they continue to work on setting up their classrooms, teaching virtually and preparing for a safe Phase II of Return and Learn. Of course, many of our staff have been hard at work, either teaching from their classrooms or preparing for our students to return for a while now. As each day passes, our faculty, staff and building gets closer and closer to being ready for students on January 25 and February 1 respectively.

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  • Wintry Bees!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    We are currently full steam ahead in planning for our January 25th and February 1st Phase II of Return and Learn. You can now access my most recent reopening Town Hall at morrisbrandon.com or directly linked HERE. Yesterday, January 12, our Morris Brandon reopening plan was also posted on our website. While this is just a draft, you can begin to see the plan for a 4 day a week return for students in Kindergarten through 5th grade. Since things are moving forward at a fast pace, I have highlighted a couple bulleted points for you below.

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  • Welcome to 2021!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    I hope that everyone had a safe and happy holiday break and spent much time with close family and little time on the computer. We’ve hit the ground running in 2021 as we plan for our Phase II Return and Learn coming at the end of the month. There is still much to get done in regard to scheduling and classroom setup, but as each day passes we continue to make strong progress. We will definitely need all the time available leading up to our January 25 K-2 return and February 1 3rd-5th return a week later. I look forward to sharing more aspects of our plan including mitigation strategies, and a sample schedule during tomorrow’s Town Hall at 10am. As always, our meetings will be recorded and posted on our Parent University site HERE. 

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  • BEEs Are Buzzing at Home!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,
    As we round out the semester and year, I want to make sure you have all of the information needed to make it into January 2021! See below for some important information about this week and next.

    Intent to Return and Phase II Reopening Plan

    Thank you for continuing to work with us as we prepare for our reopening in January 2021. I encourage you to stay up to date on the District’s reopening efforts at www.atlantapublicschools.us/reopen.

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  • BEE Thankful!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,
     

    As we inch closer to Thanksgiving break, I am excited and encouraged about all the great things that are happening at Morris Brandon. We continue to greet our students each day on our morning announcements that can always be accessed HERE. Last Thursday November 5, Kyle Farmer of the Cincinnati Reds recorded a video for our kids, providing words of encouragement during this virtual time. A former MBES graduate and member of the jump rope team, Kyle recognized Coach Wyman for the impact the Jump Rope team had on his life. Be sure to check it out!  

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  • Buzz-tastic Reminders!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    I want to take a second to thank everyone who showed up and showed out for our very first Book Character Drive Thru Parade! It was so fun standing on the corner Friday and seeing all of the amazing costumes, paired with books and teacher support signs. With the storms and the eventual decision to make Thursday and Friday non-instructional days because of power outages across metro Atlanta, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. 

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  • Spooky BEEs!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,
     

    It’s an exciting week at Morris Brandon! We had a chance to kick off the Georgia Department of Education Red Ribbon Week, and we can’t wait for our Book Character Dress Up Day on Friday! Red Ribbon week is held each year from October 23 to October 31 and includes an activity driven strategy aimed at building universal awareness of the importance of a drug free lifestyle. Each year, schools and communities are encouraged to develop messages and activities to demonstrate their commitment to living drug-free lifestyles. At Morris Brandon, this is primarily delivered through Spirit Week type activities and daily messaging on our morning announcements. 

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  • BEEs Can Do This!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    Thank you to all of our families that showed much love for Boss’s Day on Friday, October 16! Many students and staff came together to create the GREATEST Flipgrid video tribute for me. It absolutely made my day!! I also wanted to give a huge shout out to Coach Wyman and her efforts with supporting the Atlanta Georgia Kids Heart Challenge. With her coordination and your support, Morris Brandon was able to raise enough money to land in the top 25 schools out of over 170 schools across the metro Atlanta area. Thank you for continuing to support our school and students around this awesome initiative helping to raise awareness and support for the American Heart Association.

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  • BEEs are Back!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    I hope that everyone had a great long weekend and is enjoying the first Independent Learning Wednesday of the school year. Don’t worry if it feels like your child is not being as “productive” today – that is ok! Knowing that this Wednesday is the very first asynchronous day, we will continue to improve on the communication and expectations for these days of teacher planning and student catch up. We are also in a critical time for some big decisions to be made, most notably this Friday, October 16, in regard to whether or not we are still on course for a October 26 return.

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  • Don’t Fall BEEhind!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    As we move into week 7 of virtual learning and inevitably closer to in-person instruction, our staff continue to work hard for our students each day, not just in the virtual environment, but also preparing classrooms, systems and routines for welcoming back our students on October 26. I realize there are still lots of questions swirling around about how in person learning will look but it is important to note that the plan cannot be finalized until the survey window ends and staff teleworking arrangements have been made. Please continue to respect our staff concerns by not asking or requesting information on teleworking or in person learning from your child’s teacher.

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  • BEE In the Know!

    Greetings parents and community members,

    We are just a few days away from the October 5 Board Meeting where we will learn the final plan for our reopening model on October 26. In the meantime, APS just released their “Intent to Return” survey to all families that must be completed by October 10 for every APS student. I understand there is a lot of speculation and concern right now in regard to in person learning, how it will look, and above all else, what safety protocols will be in place. I highly recommend filling out the intent survey right now if you have any interest in returning face to face because you can always change your answer after the board meeting on October 5. Aside from public health data, staff surveys will remain a critical part in our reopening plan which will impact how we staff our school. Until results are shared or released by APS, I am asking that you do not ask your child’s teacher if they will be returning for in person learning. I promise to balance the reopening plan with the needs of our school and community but there will inevitably be changes to the in person model that will look and feel different from a traditional school year. Safety will also become a new focus as we will work hard over the next month to ensure all protocols are in place for our students and staff that are eligible to return. I am confident that we can do this with your patience and support. There will be much more communication in the coming weeks about how this will look so please stay tuned for important updates and meeting dates.

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  • BEE in the Know!

    We are nearly a month into virtual learning and as each day passes, we will continue to grow and get better at virtual teaching and learning. Over the past week or so, there has been a lot of dialogue on social media about returning to school, the Department of Public Health COVID data, and plans to reopen schools. While these conversations are SO important for our community to have (and get answers to), it is extremely important for you to understand that Morris Brandon staff continue to stay focused around teaching and learning. Our number one goal as a school is to ensure that our students participate in quality virtual instruction with the least amount of distractions as possible (technology issues, schedule concerns, communication) until the time finally comes to enter back into the building. When that day does arrive, rest assured that our staff will be ready. In the meantime, please take the time to complete our school survey HERE. We need feedback on how your child is doing in the current environment, so we can know how we are doing, and continue to improve our virtual instruction. 

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  • Bees are Virtually Buzzing!

    I hope everyone had a fun, restful and most importantly, safe Labor Day weekend. I enjoyed some off screen time with my family and hope that you all were able to do the same. As we roll into a shortened week three of virtual learning, please pay attention to some careful notes below. 

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  • BEE Positive!

    Week one has come and gone, and I continue to be more and more impressed with our students each day. I know this is not easy, I know it’s not where we want to be, but to see our Brandon Bees (especially our younger ones) build stamina and become more and more engaged and independent each day with virtual learning has let me know that our teachers’ hard work is paying off. I know that not every child is having the same experience, so continue to show patience as your child works to become more independent. In just one week, I’ve witnessed awesome read-a-louds, SEL community gatherings, notice and wonder charts in English/Language Arts, math small groups, breakout rooms in Zoom, annotations and quick polls, Nearpod interactive lessons, Freckle use during independent practice time, and so much more.

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  • It’s Great to BEE Back!

    We finally made it to Day One! Even with a global Zoom outage, our teachers and students managed a quick pivot to get our virtual learning off to a strong start. Obstacles come at us daily, but we are like water, moving around anything that tries to stand in our way. I was in awe at how hard our teachers, students, and parents have worked to get us to this point, but it’s just the beginning! We are going to need all of the support we can get in order to continue with our early success. 873 students logging in each day is no easy feat, and as each day passes, we are able to troubleshoot more problems in hopes of getting 100% daily participation!

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  • BEEs Will BEE Buzzing From Home!

    We’ve finally made it to the finish line of pre-planning! These past few weeks have been filled with preparations for Day 1. It started with teacher assignments and getting to know you emails, then moved to Town Halls and parent meet and greets. Now it culminates in two days of material distribution (which took two weeks to prepare for!) and our student virtual walk throughs on Thursday and Friday. Your teachers have worked incredibly hard since their return and have planned 9 weeks of instruction that will be synchronous across the grade level. I’ve already told you about our shifts in learning… common schedules, easy to access digital resources, and more streamlined communication to name a few. What I want to continue to ask you is for patience as we move into week one of virtual learning. Things are not going to be perfect next week, but that is okay! We will continue to be flexible and adaptable to all the challenges that come our way.

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  • BEE In The Know for Back to School!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    Another week brings more updates! We’ve had a great start to our second week of pre-planning as we gear up for day one on August 24. Our staff are working hard on completing 9 weeks of virtual learning plans, developing engaging activities and lessons, and beginning to learn the ins-and-outs of Zoom, as this will be our primary video conferencing tool. We’ve already hosted three grade levels in our Morris Brandon Town Hall format, and had over 300 people join these informational calls. We look forward to continuing this trend today as we see our 3rd and 4th grade parents, and tomorrow when we wrap up with our 5th grade families. Remember, you can access the Calendar with Zoom links on our Parent University pop up page at morrisbrandon.com or using THIS link.

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  • Getting Ready to BEE Back!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    It’s been a big week up at Brandon. The teachers are slowly returning, classrooms are getting fixed to accommodate virtual learning instruction, and we have our clerks and secretaries back answering phones! These may seem like small items to the regular person, but each step along the way has taken careful planning and meticulous precision in order to execute. From staff COVID entry procedures, a three week virtual pre-planning agenda, all the way to a detailed minute by minute schedule for every grade and every student – the work is real! We’ve learned to celebrate the small things along the way.

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  • Making a Bee Line for the Finish Line!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    And just like that, the 2019/2020 school year has come to an end! It’s hard to believe that two and half months ago we left for two weeks, thinking that we would return just before Spring Break. I for one never thought this would be the norm for the final quarter of our school year. I have had a dozen mixed emotions during this time but am so happy to see us ending the school year with high student engagement! We know that 95.6% of our students are engaged DAILY in online learning. The data is accurate because 100% of our teachers have taken attendance (participation) every day since 3/16, not missing one section, one teacher, or one day! Having a 100% participation take rate means that our engagement data is very accurate. Overall, 99% of our students have logged in to virtual learning from 3/16-5/20. This is measured by computer logins, Google classroom engagement and MyBackPack usage. Way to go students!

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  • Closing out the School Year!

    Greetings Parents and community members!

    Last week was great! I was able to join several class meetings, small group teaching, and field day activities. We wrapped up our virtual Fun Run and I conducted my final Coffee Talk of the year. This week’s Beemail comes with lots of important updates and I’m going to do my best to try and squeeze it all in!  

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  • It’s MAY, in the Home Stretch!

    Greetings Parents and community members!

    As we roll into week 8 of virtual learning, I want to remind everyone of some important updates. While the final semester of school has not been an easy one, I have been so impressed by the hard work our students have put into virtual learning. My favorite part of each day is highlighting the great work our students are doing on Flex Fridays, from making chocolate mousse and homemade lava lamps, to outdoor scavenger hunts and STEM projects. I also love highlighting our 5th graders each morning, focusing on their favorite memories at Brandon.  I’ve made a commitment to jump on several virtual class meetings this week and love seeing our student’s faces when the Principal appears on the screen! Remember, an archive of all announcements can be found HERE. Keep accessing these cool materials and posting videos so we can share and tag everything to #MBflex.  

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  • Buzz-tastic Reminders!

    Greetings Parents and community members!

    Entering into week 7 of virtual learning comes with many updates. I want to give a special shout out to ALL of our Morris Brandon students for reading over 500,000 minutes in our annual Read-A-Thon and raising over $50,000 for our school! Big props to our grade level winners who are featured below. I can’t wait to celebrate our winners when we return. All prizes will be mailed or given out when we return and our Fur Bus winners will be riding with me in the Spring!

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  • Buzz-tastic Reminders!

    Greetings MB families –

    Another week down and another Beemail update coming your way. Virtual learning can be tough and for some reason the weeks still seem to be flying by. Can you believe we are already in our 6th week? And we only have one month left in this school year. While I know this can be tough for our community, I continue to be impressed with our teachers’ planning, our students’ hard work and our parents adaptability.  

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  • Welcome to Spring!

    Greetings Students, Parents and Community Members!
    Welcome back to virtual learning!  While I know that Spring Break may not have been what we all wanted (a nice vacation, time away from home or visiting with family and loved ones), I hope you found some time to do what you love and took a break from teaching and learning. We had a great first month of virtual learning! While inevitably it’s taken some time to get adjusted, our students and teachers have gotten into a rhythm. In week 3 as we moved into the Extended Learning Phase, we were able to receive all parent feedback and make adjustments as needed. We closed out our first month with an awesome food donation drive at Peachtree Hills Rec Center too!

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  • Our Bees Are Buzzing, Spring is Here!

    Greetings Students, Parents and Community Members!
    As we roll into our 3rd week of distance learning, I have seen a major shift from our students, teachers and staff. The first week was a little crazy, we were all trying to get adjusted to this new norm. The following week was filled with preparation. Preparation to ensure we got the technology to the students who needed it, food to families in need, and even allowed our teachers back in the building to get supplies for extended virtual learning, and lots of learning taking place. Now, I feel like we have begun to hit our stride. I’m hopeful that our students have gotten into some sort of routine, that your teacher is communicating all the expectations of virtual learning, and that our parents now feel more comfortable facilitating this learning on a daily basis.

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  • Continue to Bee Safe!

    Greetings Students, Parents and Community Members!
    As promised, I’m including my bi-weekly Blands’ Buzz in the BeeMail now so you can get the information you need from us, once a week, on Wednesdays.  I know the past week and a half has been tough! It’s probably been more of a struggle then we all thought. I want to take a second to thank you for your support in our school, teachers and students. While you are the primary teacher now, please know that our staff are working tirelessly to get better at virtual teaching and learning. They are available to answer your emails and texts from 9am-12pm and 1pm-3pm daily. If you have not done so yet, please take a minute to fill out our virtual learning survey HERE to help give us a sense of how things are going.

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  • Bee Strong, Bee Safe!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!
    In an effort to streamline some of our communication, I’m going to include my Bland’s Buzz in the weekly Beemail so you are not getting too many emails from us.  I understand that between APS, PTA, Admin, and teacher emails, it may be alot, so we want to keep it simple for you!

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  • What’s new around our hive and Coronavirus update

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    So much has happened since we last spoke!  Our reading dog program led by Lindsay Lander, MC Media Specialist, and Mindy Little, MC Learning Lab teacher, has taken the school by storm! Everyone is trying to find a way to get some reading time with Finley! Our gifted teachers got to take our students to a day full of fun STEAM activities hosted by APS where students learned to code and participate in other activities that helped boost the science, technology and math skills and strategies. Our 5th grade students in Ms. Richards’ class are analyzing mentor text like the Phantom Tollbooth in order to incorporate those strategies into their own writing. 

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  • What’s new around our hive

    I can’t believe it’s already the 3rd week of February! As promised, I will continue to send my bi-monthly newsletter the 1st and 3rd Friday of the month, so be on the lookout! So much has happened since my last Buzz. We kicked off our annual Read-a-Thon week with an assembly at both campuses with a great presentation from a visiting author. Our students had a chance to hear and learn from Ms. Sue Seghal who read one of her books to our entire school. The students were thoroughly engaged as they learned and read about Holi, the Indian Holiday celebrating love, colors and, of course, Spring! It was a great segue into our upcoming International Travelers Week where we will be visiting India! The media centers were busier than ever as students and parents alike purchased books for students, staff and teachers at the Scholastic Book Fair and then checked out books to read during Read-A-Thon. 

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  • What’s new around our hive

    Greetings Parents and Community Members-

    We’re finally into February and what a great start to the month we’ve had! We kicked off the 3rd quarter with our HIVE rally last Friday and the kids had a blast!  While the blue HIVE won, it was great to see our two campuses come together with student achievement and celebration at the forefront. School is serious business but it’s important to stay grounded and find time to have fun and celebrate with our teachers. The rally involved a dance off, musical chairs and, of course, the big HIVE color reveal. I think it was one of the best Hive Rally’s we’ve had yet and it’s always one of my favorite days of the year! Aside from that, our 5th graders participated in the APS Annual Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl and our jump rope team made appearances around the city to kick off JumpRope for Heart week.

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  • What’s New Around Our Hive

    Greetings Parents and Community Members- Welcome to Bland’s Buzz! At our last staff meeting, I discussed the importance of these next three months. From MLK to Spring Break is really the most critical time of year and a time where our students can show the most growth. We hope they can be here each day healthy and ready to learn. Once we hit spring break, the calendar begins to fill up with schoolwide happenings, state testing and, of course, end of year activities…so the time to hunker down is now!

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  • Welcome Back!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!
    And just like that, we’re back! I can’t believe it’s already 2020. With a new year (and new decade) comes hope, opportunity, growth and unforeseen challenges! Everyday I look forward to taking one step at a time as we continue to grow and nurture Morris Brandon’s most prized possessions, our students! I hope everyone had a restful, relaxing and rejuvenating vacation. I loved seeing all of the adventures our families had on Facebook and social media. Students were so eager to greet me and tell me all of the cool things they did over break, the presents they received, and the fun they had! Of course, not everyone traveled, some families, like mine, stayed put in Atlanta and spent much needed time with family and friends. Whatever you did, I hope you enjoyed your time with your children!

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  • Have a Great Break!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!
    And just like that, 2019 comes to an end! This past week we celebrated our students including 4th grader Ava Runinen who won the first ever Morris Brandon Geo Bee. This event was led by former student Henry Djuric. Henry planned every little piece of the Geo Bee, from practice to competition. The Geo Bee constituted his Eagle Scout project. I’ve seen dozens of different Eagle Scout projects over the years but Henry’s was unique as it not only directly involved our student body but was also the first of its kind at Morris Brandon. Shout out to Jennie Lane, our teacher sponsor and all of the students who participated in this awesome event!

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  • Happy Wednesday!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! We are in the full swing of our holiday season and with that comes all the events and excitement associated with the end of a calendar year. We’ve had a fantastic first semester too! We saw the hiring of several new teachers including Music and Special Ed. We rolled our DLI program up to the main campus (3rd grade) and even hired two new DLI teachers to go along with what is already a wonderful program. We adjusted the schedule so that all grades have uninterrupted lunch and recess time, created common planning for all grades 5 days a week, moved our French program outside of specials and beefed up the minutes they serve exponentially!

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  • Welcome Back!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! 
    And just like that, we’re back!! I hope everyone enjoyed some family and friend time over our short but much needed Thanksgiving break. My wife and I enjoyed our time with our two kids down in Clearwater Florida, playing on the beach and of course eating everything in sight! While we only have 3 short weeks until our longer holiday break, those weeks will be packed full of holiday practices, performances, assessments, learning and of course holiday cheer! We’ve already hit the ground running since we returned as evident in Ms. Fallon’s 2nd grade DLI class. Her class was busy reading about Johnny Appleseed while tasting some delicious honeycrisp apples to go along with the readings.

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  • BEE Thankful and BEE Safe Over the Break!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! 
    It’s been a great week since we last spoke! Our students continue to learn, our families are enjoying our Thanksgiving Feasts, and teachers are happily moving toward the week long break! Our French teachers are already preparing our students for our annual holiday performances (more info below), and most grade levels have already transitioned into their next Wit and Wisdom units. Our 5th grade gifted teacher, Dr. Porter, brought the African American Museum of Iowa directly into her classroom, and Mr. Carr’s 3rd grade students are creating amazing chalk pastel creations! Our PC media center Media Specialist, Katie Ingram got a ton of new books as we gear up for the holiday season!

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  • Buzz-tastic Reminders!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! 
    Another week has passed and so much has happened at Brandon. We celebrated “Love Your Red Hair Day” (I didn’t know we had so many red haired students!). I got to see Mr. Hutson teach a lesson in our KK DLI Spanish class (quite impressive!), and Ms. Ingram even stocked our new Kindergarten playspace with unit books aligned to their Wit and Wisdom Module. Our 5th graders are wrapping up their Module 1 with amazing writing pieces. Our French class continues to amaze with the learning and engagement I see every time I walk by.

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  • Happy Wednesday!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! 
    And just like that, October has come and gone. Fall weather seems to have made its way into Atlanta as we gear up and prepare for Thanksgiving! We had another amazing week since we last we spoke including the best Book Character Day ever! I loved seeing our Kindergartners marching through the hallways in proud costumes. Everyone had books to accompany them demonstrating our love for reading at Morris Brandon! It wasn’t just at PC either. When I made my way up to Main Campus, our 3rd-5th graders got into book character action along with our teachers too! I also know everyone had a great time trick or treating. It was cold but dry and we survived Friday, also known to teachers as the “dreaded day after Halloween!”

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  • A Few Buzz-y Weeks Ahead!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! 
    It’s been a big week back in the Hive! We pride ourselves on teaching to the whole child at Brandon.  This comes in the form of SEL morning circles, relevant and meaningful instruction and celebrating our students when they exhibit the behaviors and outcomes that we want! I saw this throughout the week in Ms. Richards 5th grade class. Her students didn’t just learn about science but were actually BECOMING scientists when they explored movements of the earth’s crust in our Main Campus science lab.  

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  • Buzz-tastic Reminders!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! What an amazing past week we had in the Hive! Our time was filled with amazing instruction like in 4th grade where I saw students writing about the different perspectives of the Colonists and Loyalists as they wrote opinion papers on how certain characters felt about the Boston Tea Party. We had an AMAZING Kindergarten Hispanic Heritage Recital led by Ms. Halliday and Sra. Estrada’s DLI classes, and of course the best Fall Festival I have ever been to!

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  • Welcome Back From Fall Break!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!
    I hope everyone had a restful and relaxing Fall break. While your children were at home, on vacation, or just relaxing and rejuvenating, our faculty and staff have been at school, hard at work, planning and collaborating for what’s to come. While the majority of our staff opted to stay in school conducting parent/ teacher conferences, collaboratively planning or inputting grades, our Specialists participated in district planning days along with our Gifted team.

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  • Last Days to Donate to the Bee Fund!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!
    We’re finally into October and as the days seem to be cooling off, we’re super excited for what Fall has to bring! Jamboree, our Hispanic Heritage recital, Book Character Dress-up day, Thanksgiving family luncheons and of course our winter concerts are all on the horizon! While there will be plenty of info on these important dates in the upcoming weeks, I want to take a minute to recap our last full week of instruction! We got to wear our Braves gear on Thursday to support our hometown team (one more to go!), our Kindergartners had a blast at the Art Barn and we celebrated Custodial Worker Appreciation Day!

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  • Last Days to Donate to the Bee Fund, BEElieve in Brandon today!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    I can’t believe it’s already October! While it definitely doesn’t feel like it, we are happily rolling into the final phase of Q1. By the end of the month, you will hopefully have a parent/teacher conference scheduled and have seen your child’s first quarter report card, which is available in the Infinite Campus Parent Portal. Our school’s CCRPI score, the official state report card for schools, should be available soon and I will begin to share the information with our community through BeeMail and a Principal Coffee Talk.

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  • BEEleive in Brandon today!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!

    Another week down! This past week brought field trips at nearly every grade level, a 5th grade car wash, the first PTA General Meeting and of course, our Junior Beta Club election! There’s never a dull moment at Brandon as each day brings something new, not just on an instructional level, but an extracurricular and social emotional one as well! One of the highlights of my week was visiting our cluster middle school, Sutton, to award one of our very own students a state level spelling bee trophy! It doesn’t matter if you’re a new or old Brandon Bee; we want to recognize great work and great citizens everywhere. This past weekend, Mr. Hutson went to the Atlanta Lantern Parade and snapped pics of students and teachers alike, many of them representing in their Morris Brandon gear!

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  • Bee Clean

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! Can you believe we are already 6 weeks into the school year? It seems like just yesterday we were welcoming our families back from Summer vacation. While the weather is still HOT, the sixth week marks the halfway point of our first quarter. Teachers have been keeping accurate grades and progress reports for select students will be going home soon. Remember, you can always check up to date grades on our Parent Portal. We are continuing to develop our assessment strategy to ensure more alignment in grading across our grade levels, something that is not always easy! Aside from that, it’s been another busy week!    Read more

  • Happy Wednesday!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members:

    At Brandon we are so lucky to have the resources and funds available not just from Atlanta Public Schools, which has done an amazing job of moving more funds to the school level, but also from our wonderful Foundation. As you may know, each child at Brandon and within APS is allotted a small amount of money from the district. This money can be used for textbooks, teachers, professional development or IB implementation. How the funds are used is a decision of the GO Team. In a school the size of Brandon with the amount of staff and students we have, we are fortunate enough to have the additional support from parents like you! What the Foundation does for Brandon is immensely helpful not just in running the day to day operations of the largest elementary school in APS but it also helps give our Brandon students the world class education they deserve. Read more

  • Buzz-y Hive!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! So much has happened since we last spoke and so much is on the horizon! We had an amazing week leading up to Labor Day weekend. We welcomed ALL of our families back to meet their teachers during our three Back to School Nights, hosted a Student Support Services seminar for all of our parents interested in everything Brandon has to offer, and I even had the chance to speak at our State of the North Atlanta Cluster meeting last Thursday night. Read more

  • Happy to Bee Welcoming Parents This Week!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!
    As the weeks continue to move along, so does our teaching and learning!  This week is full of informational sessions designed to help you, our parents, learn more about our school, community, and strategic planning!

    I had a blast at our first back to school night on Monday as well. Our Kindergarten parents came out in full force as they learned all about their child’s teacher, our instructional programming, the class schedule and support services. First and Second grade Back to School nights were also a hit! These seasoned parents knew just the questions to ask as they learned about Brandon from their new teachers. We have had representatives from the Gifted program speaking about the evaluation process and timetable, Specialists outlining all they do for our students outside of the classroom, and of course, our awesome Program Administrator Dwight Hutson, who’s always available for a quick chat or to help answer a question. Read more

  • First Week in the Books!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members,

    As week two rolls on, I continue to be impressed with the teaching and learning that is taking place in every classroom. By now, I have had time to visit EVERY single classroom in both buildings. I see Essential Agreements on the wall, Essential Questions on the board, Wit and Wisdom and Eureka math workbooks being used and SEL in action! Students are moving quietly down the hall, have completed their first 6 day rotation, and seen their French or Learning Lab teacher on more than one occasion! It’s a beautiful sight to see, and I love it when the building is functioning so well this early in the year. It is a credit not just to our amazing students but incredible faculty and staff as well. Read more

  • Welcome Back!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!!

    And……We’re Back!! Just like that, the school year has taken off after hopefully a long and enjoyable summer! It was so great to see all of our families at our annual Celebration of Learning. I loved seeing all of our rising Kindergarten students meet their teachers for the first time, seeing how much our students have grown in just a few short months and of course former Morris Brandon siblings visiting their old teachers! That’s how you know we have the best teachers around. Brandon should be a warm and welcoming environment for all students, and that’s exactly what Celebration of Learning is!  As Monday rolled around, it was only appropriate to see our very own school, Morris Brandon, featured on the news. What a great way to start the school year! Special thanks to Crash Clark for making the day that much more special! On Saturday, I had the privilege of representing the North Atlanta Cluster at a table with a few of the other Principals at the annual Back2School Bash. Read more

  • Prepping to Return to School!

    FROM PRINCIPAL BLAND – Greetings Parents and Community Members!
    As the hot summer days continue, I’ve been back at work after a nice two-week break, ready to pick back up with all of the to-do items on my list! Our Main Campus summer renovation is coming along nicely with old carpet pulled out of the classrooms and shiny new tile in its place! We also were able to replace the carpet and tile in our main office! Our school colors are now brighter than ever as you see them everywhere you walk around the building. I can’t wait to see and share the final product: a beautiful big Morris Brandon logo laid right into our Main Campus lobby entrance! The Primary Campus is getting a brand new HVAC system as well! I am also happy to say that we are 100% complete with hiring for all of our vacancies for the 19/20 school year! Read more

  • Though Quieter, the Brandon Hive Continues to Buzz through the Summer

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! I hope your summer has been off to a great start! I enjoy seeing all of the awesome updates of your summer travel and adventures on Facebook and Twitter. If you don’t have any plans, or haven’t gone anywhere, I envy you as well! Just hanging out with the family, at the pool or with a good book may be all you need to rest, relax and recharge! While you have been enjoying summer, our admin team has been hard at work, planning for the year ahead, hiring our new bees to the hive, and attending valuable workshops to help build our capacity as school based leaders. To give you an idea, last week myself, our Assistant Principals, Program Administrator and Instructional Coach attended a 3 day APS leadership retreat where we outlined our goals and strategic priorities for the 19/20 school year. We looked at every piece of school wide data imaginable, down to parent, student and staff satisfaction surveys! We ended the retreat packing school supplies for our students to be given out at the APS Back to School Bash on 8/10/19 at the GWCC. Read more

  • Closing Out the School Year

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! With only 8 days left in the school year, coupled with Georgia Milestone testing, 5th grade exhibition, Field day, packing up for the summer move at MC, completing end-of-year tasks, Hive Rallies and so many more “To Do’s,” this month has officially been named MAY-hem! It doesn’t stop our amazing teachers and staff from doing what they do best though – giving our students the summer send-off they deserve! Our teachers, on top of everything else they do, are flawlessly planning end-of-year celebrations, inputting grades, making class lists, moving rooms and so much more! I have to give a BIG shout-out to our 3rd-5th graders who just completed their Georgia Milestone assessment as well. If you don’t already know, APS pushed the testing WAY back to allow for more time of instruction and less end-of-year down time, and it worked! Our students came to school prepared, on time, and each grade level had near-perfect attendance! Read more

  • May is in Full Swing!!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! While the countdown is on, there is still so much to discuss, so much information to share and so much news to celebrate within our Brandon community! Our Main Campus students in grades 3 and 5 have been absolutely fantastic during the first wave of Milestone testing. What impresses me the most is how mentally prepared our students are! There have been little to no absences, students are coming to school on time, and the testing sessions have been pretty much flawless with little to no technology issues or other factors that can affect the testing window. While that’s happening at MC, our PC students are busy continuing with learning and instruction! The Spring Star window is now over and we are able to get an excellent glimpse of how our students grew compared to others just like them – from the August testing window in 2018 all the way to the May window in 2019. Read more

  • The Home Stretch, Welcome to May!!

    Dear Parents and Community Members: As I think about the week since we last spoke, I’m reflective of the great work that we’ve accomplished this year and the work we continue to improve on as we make our way to the summer months. One thing that I’m excited about is Morris Brandon’s application to become a Common Sense Media School. Below is an excerpt from a piece that Program Administrator Dwight Hutson wrote as to what digital citizenship is and how it affects our students:

    We teach our children about the people we can rely on and trust in our real-world communities but what lessons do we teach them about the digital world? Digital citizenship can be considerably more complicated than the real world so we have to prepare our children on how to navigate through this world safely and circumspectly.

    In order to walk with wisdom in the virtual world, students must learn to:

    1. Maintain an outstanding digital footprint
    2. Keep their private information private
    3. Determine which sources are trustworthy

    Read more about digital citizenship and the work we are doing at Brandon, led by Mr. Hutson and team, here. Read more

  • Get Ready….Four Days Until Auction!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! As another week is upon us and we gear up for the final sprint (or marathon if you ask the teachers!), I’m reflective of the amount of work and energy that goes into not just running a school but running a classroom as well! Every day I come to school, I’m excited to see what the day will hold. Our teachers are eagerly preparing their classrooms, putting the final touch on lessons, or planning their next SEL activity. I see teachers making copies, meeting with parents, and even hosting before-school tutorial sessions. Our office clerks are answering phones, sorting mail, and managing attendance while our admins are making their way around the building, making sure everything is perfect come 7:30am when the doors will open. Our support staff, including custodians, cafeteria workers, site managers and bus drivers, are all busy doing their AM duties – cooking, cleaning, preparing and getting our kids to school safely and on time. Read more

  • Get Your Auction Tickets Today!

    Greetings parents and community members! As we continue to inch closer to May and inevitably the summer, we continue to make great strides at Morris Brandon! We are actively hiring the best staff around for 19/20 openings, continuing to work on scheduling and curriculum purchases for next year and are completing profiles for all students in order to find the best teacher placement for next year. These student placement cards, or “profiles” as I call them, are a way that our teachers can share any and all pertinent information about your child to their teacher for next year. While you may never see these, it’s a great way for their 19/20 homeroom teacher to see any trends, data or social-emotional needs that any of our students may have so that they are best prepared to welcome them come day one! Read more

  • Get Your Running Shoes Ready!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members, it feels like an eternity since we last spoke! I trust that you all had a nice, relaxing, fun-filled Spring Break with your kids. I love following all of your adventures on Facebook. Lots of beach time, some Disneyland, a few trips to Europe, and lots of relaxing at home. What a way to spend Spring Break!  I fell on the latter end, as I spent my time off right here in Atlanta. My children were off Monday and it was great to spend the day with them. While it seemed like winter creeped back in for a quick second (it was cold!), the day quickly warmed up and allowed us time to visit pretty much every park within a 3-mile radius of our house. The rest of the week was spent outdoors, on the beltline, working out and sleeping! As we gear up for that final springtime push into summer, I’m reflective of the time we spent since the last time we spoke. Read more

  • Welcome to Spring!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! Can you believe there are only 40 days left in the school year? I cannot believe how fast this year has gone! I can say without a doubt that I’ve learned more in the past 10 months than I have the prior 10 years! We often talk about engagement as being that feeling you have when you get home from work. Are you tired? Worn out, sad, mad or depressed? Or are you eager and invigorated to get started with where you left off? I know where I stand! Read more

  • Our Bees Are Buzzing!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! Another week is upon us and what a week it was! Our teachers spent all day Monday vertically planning with the grades above and below them. This is a great way for teachers from an upper grade to talk to the grade below about what they want their students to know and be able to do. We often take it for granted but teachers are busy! They barely have enough time to plan with their own grade levels let alone different grades, so we were happy to see them planning away and building that collaborative learning community that I’ve been speaking so much about. Read more

  • Busy Days Ahead for Our Bees!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! Another week is upon us and, as we inch a little closer to Spring Break, the learning, instruction and engaging classroom activities continue each day at Brandon! This past week saw lots of exciting activities happening within our wonderful school. As you know, each month our school reads a book focused around SEL competencies and tied into what is happening during that time. Mr. Hutson and I highlight these books each month in a segment we call “Principal Book Chat.” It’s a great way to send a positive message to our students across both campuses and we hope these are viewed in each classroom! Read more

  • Busy Days Ahead For Our Bees!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members, can you believe that we are over two months into the new year? I can’t believe how fast we are moving. I’ve always said that teaching is like a train – it’s going to move fast, regardless of whether you are on it! Before we know it, it will be spring break and then downhill for a short two months until summer. Rest assured that, as always, there are no days off for our students and our instructional staff. Read more

  • Welcome Back From Break!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! We were so excited to welcome ALL of our Morris Brandon students back to school Monday. Everyone seemed super relaxed, excited to return (for the most part), and well rested from the week off. I loved hearing about all of the awesome places our students went, events they attended, or even the book they read on the sofa or by the fire on a rainy winter break day. While you and your children were spending the week NOT at school, your teachers and staff were busy planning out the final three months of school and participating in some meaningful professional development at the school level. Read more

  • Read-A-Thon is in Full Swing!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! This past week we saw another slew of exciting activities taking place at Brandon, including our Scholastic Book Fair, a visit from the Atlanta Opera, Counselor Appreciation, the Tall and Small Ball and, of course, it all culminated with the kickoff of our annual Read-A-Thon! This is the first year I’ve ever experienced anything like this. The fact that we have an entire week dedicated to reading and raising money for our school excites me in so many different ways! Not only is reading so important for our children, but also these types of initiatives fall directly in line with what we are trying to accomplish as a school and as indicated within our schoolwide priorities set forth in our newly-approved strategic plan. The kickoff to Read-A-Thon was absolutely unbelievable! Read more

  • Last Days of the Book Fair, Don’t Miss out!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! We’ve reached February!! While January didn’t seem as long a month for me as it did for some people, the month did get the New Year started right! We rolled right back into school with little time lost due to the holidays, with exciting activities, celebrations, programs and, of course, solid instruction taking place. This last week saw the kick-off of our Scholastic Book Fair at both Main and Primary Campus. I love seeing students perusing books and learning materials, using their Bee Bucks any chance they can get. Read more

  • Busy Days Ahead For Our Bees!

    Greetings parents and community members! While I sit at home writing this this post on another “No Day,” I thought I’d take the time to reflect on some more great happenings and accomplishments at Brandon over the last week. While I’ve been busy finalizing our schools 19/20 strategic plan (to be posted soon) as well as our FY 19/20 budget, we continue to move through the school year as one school, headed in one direction with one purpose: to give our children the best, most enriching school experience they can have while in Elementary School! With Read-a-Thon right around the corner as well, there are so many exciting programs and announcements to make!  Read more

  • Chilly air, bees don’t care!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! As we roll into our third week back since holiday break, I am excited to celebrate some of the successes of our students, faculty and staff! Knowing that academic progress is important for our students from year to year, our hard-working instructional coach and fantastic teachers have created all sorts of acceleration and remediation plans tailored to meet the unique needs of each of our students. You obviously know by now about MyLexia, designed to cater remediation and acceleration to a student’s particular needs, but did you know that each grade level has now created intervention/acceleration plans for every student? Our teachers have been tasked with identifying areas where students need reinforcement or practice around a certain skill (writing/ reading/ math fluency etc.) or areas where students on grade level already can further accelerate their learning, and placing EVERY student on their grade level with a teacher, once a week, to get that extra help or push. Read more

  • Winter is Bee-eautiful!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! Of course it’s been another exciting week at Brandon with tons to celebrate and share, culminating in our 2nd quarter Hive celebration! I loved celebrating ALL of our students across both campuses, focusing on positive behavior, good attendance and students meeting their reading goals. By this point I’m sure you know the Orange Hive won, but, rest assured, Class DoJo points will be reset and students will once again have a chance to be recognized for being outstanding global citizens and students of Brandon throughout our 3rd quarter. One important aspect of our Hive rally is the bridge it builds between both campuses. Read more

  • Welcome Back!

    Dear Parents and Community Members: And we’re back! It seems like forever ago that we last spoke and I hope everyone had an incredible, restful, family-orientated time off. I hope you were able to spend some valuable time with your children (I know I did!) and got lots of rest, rejuvenated for the New Year to come. While our staff came back a little earlier than the students did, everyone was buzzing about how restful and relaxing our time off was, especially with all of the end-of-year activities taking place before our break. Read more

  • Have a Great Break!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! We have had an amazing last few weeks of school, wrapping up first semester with a ton of engaging and fun activities for our students and staff! The week was highlighted by our Primary Center holiday performance, which blew my mind! The turnout was unbelievable (standing room only) and the hard work that our students put in was so evident. I said it before and I’ll say it again – I’ve never seen a holiday show in THREE LANGUAGES. I have to give all of the props to our amazing homeroom teachers for reinforcing all of the expectations needed to pull something like this off and especially our Specials teachers for coordinating the whole thing. Read more

  • Bees Visiting South Africa!

    Dear Parents and Community Members: Thank you so much for your patience with our shortened day on Tuesday! Since I’ve been in APS, I can’t remember a delayed-start school day, but, with careful planning and execution, we were able to get all 1020 students to school on time (for the most part) and ready to learn! Rest assured, all of our children, on an adjusted schedule, were still able to get breakfast, lunch, recess and 35 minutes of Specials, along with all core subjects and SEL lessons. Read more

  • Bees Heading to South Africa!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! I hope everyone enjoyed their first week back at work since Thanksgiving! You won’t believe the amount of cool things that took place at our amazing school since we last spoke. I never run out of things to talk about – the challenge is fitting it all in to one BeeMail!  In just one week: Read more

  • Welcome Back!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! And we’re back! Just like that, Thanksgiving has come and gone. I had a great time with family and friends during my time off but we’re back in the full swing of things at Brandon Elementary and I cannot believe how fast the year has gone. While there is only one more month left in the semester, there is so much taking place before we leave on 12/21. We have International Travelers Week where we’ll be going to South Africa, our annual holiday performances and holiday parties, and, of course quality daily instruction happening in every classroom, and so much has happened since we last spoke! Read more

  • Bee Thankful and Bee Safe Over the Break!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! Another week is upon us and we are that much closer to Thanksgiving! It’s been a tremendous week with lots of happenings. I was able to share all of the good news, school priorities and amazing things taking place at Brandon during last week’s annual Principal Meet and Greet hosted by NAPPS (North Atlanta Parents for Public Schools) at Sarah Smith Elementary School. I spoke about our implementation of our new Wit and Wisdom ELA program and our focus around guided reading, as well as the awesome professional development we’ve been able to bring to our teachers because of generous donations from you! Read more

  • A Few Buzz-y Weeks Ahead!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! Once again, so much has happened since the last time we spoke and, of course, I am happy to share! First and foremost, while our students were home from school yesterday, our staff was busy at work engaging in a day full of trainings and professional developments. Our entire faculty and staff came together at the Primary Center to learn once again from Brenda Fitzgerald, a leading expert in early literacy, writing and multisensory learning. She engaged our teachers in three hours of Understanding Dyslexia as we eagerly took notes and asked questions on how to best serve our students. One out of every five students has dyslexia and we want to continue learning everything we can about how to best support our students’ reading and writing. Read more

  • Happy Halloween!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! Another week is upon us and lots of news to share! Since last Tuesday, our school has been celebrating Red Ribbon Week with all sorts of fun activities and dress-up days. The month of October is National Bullying Prevention Month and has been packed with events that unite students against negative behaviors and promote positive choices. Theme days are a fun and exciting way to integrate Red Ribbon Week and National Bullying Prevention Month Activities with No Place for Hate. I saw students wearing red in support of “RED-Y” to live a drug-free lifestyle, Put a Cap on Drugs Day (hat day), Sock it to Drugs (crazy sock day), Read more

  • Buzz-tastic Reminders

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! What a week we’ve had since we last spoke! While we continue to see amazing work and student-centered learning in every class, I’m amazed by the awesome activities that we’ve been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time! Several of our teachers were out last week finishing up their Focus on Phonics workshop and have returned with a wealth of knowledge not only in teaching how to read, but also in filling in the gaps for students who may have missed key concepts in K-2 and are now in the upper grades. Our teachers are learning how to “break the code” when it comes to reading, with an emphasis on using a multisensory approach to learning and full implementation of guided reading. We are continuing to make strides in teaching our teachers how to teach phonemic awareness at all grades, and that starts with meaningful professional development paid for by your generous donations to our Foundation. This would not be possible without YOU!  Read more

  • Welcome Back From Fall Break!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members!! We’re Back!!!! It was so great to see all of our families arriving back to school on the 15th, refreshed and ready to learn! I hope everyone had a wonderful time off, relaxing with friends and family. It even seems like many of our students grew in height over the short break 🙂 We left for Fall Break with some of the best news I’ve heard all year – together we raised $258,000 during the annual BEE FUND CAMPAIGN! I am still in awe of the amount of support our community and families show for our school. Read more

  • Last Days to Donate to the Bee Fund!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! So much has happened since the last time we spoke! Two of the highlights over the past week were special recognitions that Brandon received from APS. First, at last week’s expanded cabinet meeting where EVERY leader in APS attends, Brandon was recognized as having the highest student attendance for the month of August! While this may not seem like a big deal, when you compare us with EVERY other school in APS (not just elementary), it’s great to see us recognized not only in front of every APS leader but also ahead of a middle school (Young) and high school (Grady). There are tons of studies that show that attendance in elementary school sets the tone for middle and high school. Students who are at school each day and ready to learn are more likely to perform better in school – it’s not rocket science! I hope that, together with our attendance team, we can win this award every month and ultimately for the year. Remember, it is our expectation that every student is present at least 90% of the time he or she is enrolled at school and is here each day by 8:00am ready to learn and grow. Second, I have to give a special shout-out to our Special Education department and co-teachers who were at Brandon last year. Read more

  • Last Days to Donate to the Bee Fund, BEElieve in Brandon today!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members! Can you believe another week has passed since we last spoke?? Before you know it, it will be Fall Break (10/8-10/12) and we will be well on our way to the second quarter of the school year. I make it a habit every day to visit every single classroom at either the Primary or Main Campus (and so does my team). I love seeing the learning taking place everywhere I go and especially the morning circles that our teachers always begin each day with. A lot has happened since the last time we met! Read more

  • Bee Clean – For Everyone’s Cars!

    Greetings Parents and Community Members: Another week has passed since we last spoke and the amount of learning and engagement we’ve seen in the classroom has been tremendous! It has been a big week for not just our students, but also for our staff as well. We were able to come together for our PLCs (Professional Learning Communities) last week and learn from district resource Dr. Katelyn Plescoe as we took a deep dive into interpreting our data.  We learned that for grade 3-5 students, the best predictor of Georgia Milestone achievement is actually how they did the year before! We took that knowledge and are beginning to learn about the correlations of past performance on GMAS with past STAR assessments. Did you know that a student’s Fall STAR score is HIGHLY correlated with how they will do on their end-of-year assessment 8 months later? When teachers know this data, they can begin to really drill down on what students need while keeping the anticipated end result in mind. Read more

  • Falling into Line

    Greetings Parents and Community Members: We are back to another full week of school with lots of exciting happenings around the building! One of my favorite things that took place last week was our grade level check-ins that happened across the school in grades k-5. Our admin team took the time to meet with ALL of our students in order to reinforce our Essential Agreements and conduct a check-in with students to see how the first month of school has gone. I love this time because we are able to focus in on individual grade levels in a small, quiet environment as we continue to speak about what it means to be kind, accepting and well-behaved no matter where you are, what building you are in, or what school bus you ride. There are always times when children do not follow our behavior expectations, but understand that we are here to TEACH and MODEL what is expected of a Morris Brandon student as our children often learn lifetime behaviors during the early years of education. Read more

  • Happy Wednesday!

    FROM PRINCIPAL BLAND – Greetings Parents and Community Members: It’s been an exciting (and short) week since we last spoke. I hope everyone had an amazing and relaxing Labor Day weekend. Even though Labor Day traditionally marks the end of summer, we’ve been back and rolling now for quite a while. Can you believe that we have been in school for one whole month? The time has flown by! We celebrated by rewarding our hard-working teachers with donuts and coffee hand-delivered by our admin team last Friday. Needless to say, they loved it!! In just the short amount of time since we last spoke, some amazing things have taken place outside of and within our building. Outside of the building, our school leadership team (made up of all of our grade-level chairs and specialty lead teachers, including Gifted, ESOL, Specials and Special Ed.) participated in a great day of learning and collaboration downtown at APS’s Instructional Services Center. Funded by our Foundation, we learned about how to effectively lead grade-level conversations and collaborate with our teammates in a way that will help us get results! Read more

  • Bees Buzz Stronger with Your Support!

    FROM PRINCIPAL BLAND – Dear Parents and Community Members: Another week has passed with so many exciting activities taking place! For this BeeMail post, I’d like to focus on some of the wonderful items our Foundation has been able to approve and fund in order to help us in our mission of providing the best, most well-equipped teachers in front of our students and your children!! Just last week, the amazing board approved so many exciting programs, ideas, innovative practices and curriculum supplies that only a very lucky school like Brandon, with an amazing supporting cast of parents and community members, would be able to accomplish. The board approved Ipads for Ms. Fellows’ class, LOTS of DLI materials for our 2nd grade cohort of students and teachers, ceramic supplies for our art teachers, instructional materials for our music program and even a new printer head for our high-tech poster-making machine! The funding didn’t stop there!  Read more

  • Buzz-y Hive!

    FROM PRINCIPAL BLAND – Greetings Parents and Community Members: We are rocking and rolling at Brandon Elementary School. As we are moving into week three, the amazing things that are happening in both buildings are evident across all grade levels and content areas. In our Specials classes, Mr. Carr, our PC art teacher, has been teaching Kindergartners the power of teamwork and collaboration (a common theme at Brandon this year) as students learn about the color spectrum. Coach Wyman, our MC Physical Education teacher, is on the same page as she engaged her students in cooperation and creativity, building teamwork through cooperative games seen during her new Super Specials block. Ms. McCarren had her students drumming to a beat set to some of their favorite music, and the always fantastic Ms. Ingram helped her students at the PC channel their book character of the week as they read “Rosie Revere, Engineer.” I loved seeing Ms. Halliday’s class (and the rest of Kindergarten) participating in “questions only” Socratic Seminars as students engaged in meaningful academic conversation throughout their Wit and Wisdom unit. Ms. Espinoza and the rest of our DLI k-2 teachers continue to AMAZE me, teaching phonics in English AND Spanish! Ms. Murphy’s class continues to “Notice” and “Wonder” what they read (and see) as they used their magnifying glasses to identify words that require capital letters. I loved seeing Mr. Freeman’s 3rd grade class learn about (and review) the scientific method as they asked questions about their discoveries (inquiry based learning at its finest!) and Ms. Windle’s 4th grade class learn about the King and his Parliament members as they taxed the rest of the class with M&M’s! Learning can be fun and our teachers work hard to make sure our students leave each day not only with “filled buckets” but also a thirst to learn more. Read more

  • Happy to Bee Welcoming Parents this Week!

    FROM PRINCIPAL BLAND – Greetings Parents, Faculty and Staff! A lot has happened since the last time we have chatted! My family and I had an INCREDIBLE time at the Backyard Bash last Friday. It was great to see all of our families on campus, having fun, meeting new people and of course playing! In fact, my son was so disappointed he had to leave that I had to promise I would take him back to the playground another time!

    As a leadership team, we continue to be incredibly impressed by the teaching and learning that is taking place each day and in every classroom. Our teachers are wrapping up Module 0 and starting Module 1 of our new Language Arts curriculum, Wit and Wisdom. I saw Socratic Seminars, silent “chalk talk” activities and even art analysis in Ms. Stansbury’s and Ms. Richards’s 5th grade classes. I love this curriculum because it really encompasses much more than just reading and writing. Our students are exploring parts of the world, delving deep into literary and information texts and engaging in an IB-infused curriculum that’s surely going to help them become global citizens. Ask your child’s teacher how Wit and Wisdom’s Content Stages utilize visual art as a learning tool! It’s amazing to watch students describe what they “Notice” and “Wonder” about famous artwork that many of us have seen before!  Read more

  • First Week in the Books!

    FROM PRINCIPAL BLAND – We’ve had a great start to week two! As we begin to move away from beginning of the year rules, routines and procedures, we are now making way for Eureka math, Social Studies Weekly, Stemscopes (science) and our new ELA curriculum Wit and Wisdom. I’ve loved getting into classrooms and seeing all the wonderful activities that are taking place at both campuses. Students are analyzing texts at the upper grades, recording “what they know” and “what they wonder” about stories they’ve read, and engaging in meaningful academic conversation while also writing out their thoughts and ideas on paper. I’m also seeing handwriting at the lower grades, some beginning cursive and always our Saxon Phonics piece. I was SO impressed walking into Ms. Fallon’s 2nd grade class today. Her students were able to identify whether vowel sounds were long or short and able to mark them with Breves and Macrons! We had a fantastic room parent meeting (and it was HIGHLY attended :), a great new teacher mentor meeting and we are all anxiously awaiting our back to school night when we can come back together and discuss whole class and grade level logistics! A couple of notes below: Read more

  • Week 1 Recap

    Greetings Brandon Families and Community members!!

    WOW!! We did it, we made it through our first week TOGETHER! It was amazing taking it all in, watching our children come off the buses, out of cars, walking to school and most importantly seeing their friends and teachers again! We are back in full swing and ready to learn and grow. We have been busy, setting expectations, establishing routines, building our learning communities and making new friends! I’ve seen teachers conducting all sorts of ice breakers with their classes, giving building tours, implementing Social Emotional Learning day 1, and using morning circles to prepare our students for the day. Here’s a quick snapshot: Read more

  • Welcome Back!

    FROM PRINCIPAL BLAND – Dear Parents, day one is here! It has been a long road to get here and I am so excited that we are gearing up for an amazing school year. I was so impressed with the turnout at our Celebration of Learning. It was great to meet new students (and returning), tons of families, and even grandparents! The love of Morris Brandon in this community is palpable and I’m so glad I’m here! I want to give a BIG shout out to our teachers. They have been absolutely phenomenal in dealing with an almost all new admin team. I loved seeing old students come back to see their teachers, many of whom are in high school and even college. That’s how you know our teachers are fantastic! We have worked tirelessly since they returned last week in planning and organizing the school year to be ready for your children. With that said, please continue to know that the first few days of school can be a little hectic when it comes to arrival and dismissal. We are asking that all parents continue to follow our parking and drop off rules. This allows all of our students to enter the building safely and be ready to learn at 8am. I look forward to continuing to meet our families but most importantly, our students. After all, they are the reason we are here!

    To a great day one-
    Jay

  • Prepping to Return to School

    FROM PRINCIPAL BLAND – Greetings Parents, Staff, and Community Members…WE ARE ALMOST THERE! It’s been an amazing last couple of weeks with all sorts of awesome activities taking place. I am excited to say that we are making great progress in being 100% ready to open our doors to our students in just one week! Can you believe how fast the summer has flown by? Our buildings are spotless, the classrooms are set, our teachers are ready, and my team is anxiously awaiting DAY 1! A lot has happened since the last BeeMail went out:

    • We had an awesome meet and greet with our community. The Primary Center hosted over 100 people all anxious to meet our new admin team and new school leadership. It was great to finally shake hands, meet some students, and share good conversations about what to expect this year. Thank you to those who came out!

    Read more

  • Summer Updates

    Greetings Brandon families, parents and community members!!

    It has been a BUSY summer up at school. As you may or may not know, there have been many new additions to the Morris Brandon family and I am extremely confident and excited in the faculty and staff that are joining our family. To give you an idea:

    • There are thirteen new teachers and support staff
    • One new Program Administrator
    • One new Assistant Principal
    • One new Literacy Coordinator
    • And one new Principal 🙂

    Totaling SEVENTEEN NEW BEES joining the hive!!!!

    While I understand this is quite a change all in one year, I want you to know that the absolute best staff have been chosen based solely on one overarching theme, WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR STUDENTS.   Read more

  • Summer Greetings

    Greetings Morris Brandon families and community! I am so happy to be here as the Interim Principal and can’t wait to get started on another amazing year. While the last month has been summer break for many of you, the leadership team has been hard at work, hiring for open positions, planning out the school year ahead, attending professional development sessions and helping me immensely as I transition into my new role. I have already met so many wonderful staff, parents and students and can’t wait to meet everyone else as we inch closer to the start of the school year.  Before I go further, I want to extend a special farewell to Ms. Tiffany Momon, Program Admin at the Morris Brandon Primary Campus.  Ms. Momon has been selected to be the new Principal of Cascade Elementary and we know she is well deserving and will do amazing things there.  We wish her all the best on her new journey and she has promised me she will come back and visit!!

    What’s Bee-n Happening?  Read more

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