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. I talked about all of the great things not just Morris Brandon is doing but all of our cluster elementary schools as well. I spoke about our work with Wit & Wisdom, Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark screening, the state of Dual Language Immersion within our cluster and the work we have done with communication and leveraging our GO Team for planning. There was so much valuable data and information shared that attendees were able to leave with a clear vision of what the NA cluster should accomplish in the next 5 years and a strategic plan on how we’ll get there. If you missed out, don’t worry!  All the information can be found here under the North Atlanta Cluster Presentations and Resources tab. Aside from that:

• Rachel Bull, our MC ESOL teacher, was able to host her 60 day challenge for all MC students. The 60 Day Challenge is a district initiative that charges all APS ESOL teachers with reaching EVERY member of their community through outreach and informational sessions prior to the 60th day of school. It’s a lofty goal but nothing we can’t accomplish!
• Ms. Cutshalls K-2 ESOL challenge will be next Monday, 9/9 at 6:00pm at the PC.
• Ms. Leathers’ AMAZING 2nd grade class (and all of 2nd grade for that matter), began learning how to track the sun in order to figure out cardinal directions. I saw the students tracing their shadows and then returning later in the day to see how they’ve moved! Inquiry based learning at its finest!
• Ms. Hudson’s 1st grade class continued to role with their FUNdations phonics program. This program differs from Saxon in that it is Orton-Gillingham based, and uses multiple approaches to learning in order to teach phonics. If you want multisensory learning, FUNdations is the way to go. We hope we can expand this program more next year.
• Our Gifted teachers continued to rock n’ roll with providing high quality Gifted curriculum and extension activities to ALL students. Dr. Strickland’s 3rd grade class worked on activities that help to foster a growth mindset, Ms. Walston began her Think Lab with her 1st graders and Dr. Chu worked on providing equity in Gifted as she made sure all students were getting what they need to be successful. Great job Gifted!
• And all teachers K-5 continued with rigorous academic instruction with a focus on Eureka Math and Wit & Wisdom ELA!

I hope everyone continues to have a great week and especially, a great year! I also want to invite everyone to my first Principal Coffee Talk next Friday, September, 13at 10am in the MC Media Center. This quarter I am going to outline a day in the life of a Brandon Bee. We will take a look at our newly revamped schedule, standards of service for minutes of instruction, delve into Intervention and French blocks, as well as clarify and answer any questions you may have on our 6 day rotation on an A/B schedule.

Talk soon!
j