Principal News Summer Edition

We had a remarkably busy week in BAMO Nation! College and Career Week was a blast! Our counselor, Mrs. Jones, started us off with a College and Career Week Rally focusing on HBCU’S for exposure. We even had a guest DJ from V103 to surprise the students. Two of our very own 5^th graders served as masters of ceremony. Mid-week, BAMO in collaboration with one our partners, AVLF, sponsored a huge job fair for our parents with jobs ready to hire on the spot! The week culminated with over 30 guests representing all careers fields and sectors eager to share with our students.

We officially launched READ ACROSS AMERICA WEEK with over 30 APS Officers reading to our students along with several guest readers from The Omni, another school partner. The day also consisted of Brunch with Dads where fathers and male role models had breakfast with students all in the name of improving literacy outcomes. The day was buzzing with literacy activities and games to increase student achievement!

Our BAMO teachers are going strong with learning and implementing new strategies aligned to the Science of Reading. As an APS Pilot School under the Literacy and Justice for All Initiative, our teachers are becoming models for others across the district using research-based practices to improve literacy achievement. You will see here where our teachers are engaged in deep professional learning using new phonics tools to support early literacy.

As our state rolls out new math standards and APS, a new math curricular resource, BAMO is pumped up and eager to support our teachers and students in learning and implementing new standards, so much so that we held an I LOVE MATH DAY on 2/14! This is an annual event for our school supported by a grant from Redefined, a local nonprofit, aimed at supporting family engagement and advocacy for improving academic achievement. Parents were invited to attend and engage in hands-on learning tasks geared towards becoming more familiar with conceptual mathematics thinking. What a fun day which was packed with parents!

School attendance matters and so does reporting to school on time. Tardiness can have a negative impact on a great start to an awesome day of learning, therefore our attendance team decided to motivate students to come to school on time for the last week prior to Winter Break. Students with perfect attendance and no tardies for the week engaged in a “No Tardi-Gras” Parade! We had a blast and teachers reported back that it made an enormous difference in a smoother start of the day. Attendance and coming to school on time are the ingredients for a successful day of teaching and learning.

As we prepare for the second half of the school year, it is vital as a school Leadership Team for us to stop to reflect on our school-wide CIP (Continuous Improvement Plan) Goals to analyze where we are with action steps and strategies to support key academic levers. I am so proud of the reflective dialogue and courageous conversations that took place under the facilitation of teacher leaders in our building, owning the work with shared accountability. We are eager to make the necessary shifts to support growth in student achievement.

January 15

A Day On for BAMO Nation! Our BAMO Dazzling Dolls and Gents were featured in the Gwinnett County MLK Day Parade! They were confident along the parade route and this opportunity allowed for more exposure across metro Atlanta. As the spectators cheered on, many asked if they were a performing arts school. BAMO is on the MOVE!

January 20

BAMO goes hard in celebrating the 100^th day of school! As in years past, we always celebrate 100 days of school in grand style! This year put the icing on the top as we have put several academic systems in place to support literacy, math, and growing teacher capacity. These efforts have yielded tremendous growth in our overall collective teacher efficacy. As a school, we have also been more intentional in focusing on supporting our new staff and improving our overall school culture! We had to pause and reflect on the first one hundred days of school!

Academic achievement is supported at BAMO by consistently exposing our students to content area contests and district representation. BAMO is proud of our Spelling Bee Winners who represented us at the APS Spelling Bee, as well as those students who went on to place in the APS Science Fair, and APS Technology Fair! BAMO is consistently dedicated to pushing our students to greatness! For the first time ever, we even had a 3^rd grader to place at the district level! As a principal, I truly appreciate the sponsors who put in countless hours from our school to ensure our students are ready to compete and showcase projects!

Our teachers enjoy learning and working collaboratively to plan and analyze student data to meet the needs of our students. It truly brightened my day to “catch” two of our brand-new educators planning an in-depth lesson and not even recognizing that I had entered the room. We are truly focused on continuing the important work of improving our instructional practices to improve student achievement!

Quality student work is on display all throughout the building at BAMO. From hands-on 3D Solar System projects in 4th grade, to dioramas in 3rd grade, we are committed to giving our students optimal and engaging learning opportunities to spark and motivate classroom experiences. 

We are so proud of our educators for a great first month of school! I decided to surprise them with “Smoothies” for a “Smooth Landing” as they took a quick layover to enjoy a much needed and well-deserved three-day weekend for the Labor Day weekend. Our entire staff brings such great energy into the building daily, the energy of commitment and teamwork! The flight crew of FLIGHT 2324 is on a mission!

Our students completed MAP testing last week! This baseline academic data will provide us with an even more detailed analysis of our students’ strengths and opportunities for growth. We will be sending home MAP Family Reports in the next week or so with scheduled times in October to discuss your specific child’s performance with teachers. We have already started our academic Intervention/Enrichment block for Literacy and Mathematics. The sky is the limit on how far we can improve our proficiency rates for the school! 

It brings me so much joy to launch my new principal’s Blog Page, “Principal Christian’s Chronicle of the Week”! BAMO is an exciting place for teachers to teach and for students to learn. As a school community, our focus is on improving student achievement outcomes in both literacy and mathematics, more specifically on increasing our percentage of students scoring at the proficient level and beyond. With an emphasis on building teacher capacity with professional learning opportunities, we are simultaneously providing programming and initiatives in the arts to build the whole child. Additionally, we are continuing our journey as an IB Candidate School. 

Each week, I will share highlights from the previous week which align with our common purpose and schoolwide academic goals.  I truly hope that you take the time to “see and feel” the positive energy and intentionality centered around improving academic outcomes for students at BAMO!