Middle School

Disclosure :: This post is sponsored by BASIS Baton Rouge. Behind the Desk: Unveiling BASIS Mid-City’s New Visionary Leader Forget boring introductions! We snagged some quality time with Marissa Carroll, the new Head of School at BASIS Baton Rouge Mid City, to crack the code on what makes this school tick for EBR students. With over two decades of teacher and administrator credit under her belt (including a stint as the SPED Coordinator at BASIS Baton Rouge Materra), Marissa brings a passion for learning and a contagious enthusiasm that's impossible to ignore. What inspired you to become an educator, and how did you end up in a leadership role as a principal? The spark that ignited my educator flame? Witnessing those "aha!" moments...

Disclosure :: This post is sponsored by Take Note.  The Journey to Impact "We need a school that looks like Disneyland but operates like Harvard," said Chakesha Scott as she began dreaming of ways to change the education landscape in Baker, Louisiana. In 2014, Scott turned her aspirations into reality by establishing Impact Charter School, Baker's inaugural and only locally-based charter school. However, the journey to fulfill her dream was filled with adversity and challenges. As the founder and CEO, Scott describes the process of opening a charter school in Louisiana as "one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life." Through it all, Scott would lean on her "why,” the students. “The children I witnessed suffering in Baker's...

My husband was on his way home with both our girls. I had just arrived home from work, and I began my daily routine of feeding pets and changing into my workout clothes. I sat on the sofa and put on my socks and shoes. I wonder if my bonus-daughter’s phone is in her room, randomly popped into my head. I have never snooped at her phone before, so this thought was new and definitely random for me. But my brain could not let go. Starting to stretch for my evening run, I kept marinating on the idea. So, I said a little prayer, asking God for His wisdom, and I felt an even stronger urge to put my secret...

Property Brothers :: Money, Mercy, and Monopoly Flashback to New Year’s Eve, 2021. That night, we stayed in as Covid cases had spiked and gifted us with the Omicron variant. I would eventually become well-acquainted with Omicron a few weeks later. But on this quiet and cozy evening playing board games, laughing, and enjoying the “Mini Sweet Tooth Buffet” I’d pulled together following a last-minute Target run, I looked around and felt better than I’d felt in months. I could have sworn I tasted a bit of sweet hope intermingled with the sour gummy worms. That night we played Monopoly as a family for the first time. It had been at least a decade since I’d opened the game, and pulling that...

In Defense Of Public Schools Public or private? This seems to be a very hot topic nowadays. It’s easy to see why. We want our kids to have the best of the best, don’t we? We want them afforded every opportunity available to them so they grow into mature, responsible, HAPPY adults, right? That’s the goal! My family and I are very fortunate to live in a great public school district where we know they’ll thrive, but the question of public or private honestly never came up in discussions about education when our kids were babies. After all, my husband and I both went through the public school system and had no solid complaints. So here’s some reasons we LOVE our public...