Brainerd High School and Baylor School leadership students from a prior partnership year meet with Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke.Brainerd High School Assistant Principal Dr. Charles Mitchell will always remember the day a student from a local private school walked up to him, tears in his eyes, and apologized.
“He said, ‘To be honest, we had a perception [of BHS students]. But being here we see that y’all are students just like we are,'” Mitchell recalled. ” What donned on me was, moving forward, had he never had this experience, how would he [think]?”
Over the past three years, Mitchell has partnered with Baylor School, Girls Preparatory School and, now, Boyd-Buchanan School to create joint community service and learning experiences, providing students from both schools the opportunity to interact with others of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, races and religions, he said.
“It benefits our students and their students as well to see the world from different lights,” said Mitchell. “I feel like what we do with Boyd-Buchanan is a microcosm of what should be happening everywhere. Too many times, we don’t give kids any opportunity to be a part of that conversation. It starts with education.”
Though the partnership with Boyd-Buchanan is in its beginning stages, students from Boyd have already been welcomed at Brainerd. The students collaborated on a trunk-or-treat held at First Cumberland Presbyterian, and are planning other community service projects.