Thousands went blue once again for Team BCPS Day

TOWSON – Everywhere you turned on Team BCPS Day, Jan. 12, all you could see was blue – blue clothes, blue books, blue hair, pets wearing blue, buildings bathed in blue…

Team BCPS Day is Baltimore County Public Schools’ annual celebration of pride, unity, impact, and all-around awesomeness. Team BCPS stakeholders were asked to photograph themselves wearing blue and to send those photos or post them on social media. This year it yielded almost 600 tweets, reaching 197,203 unique viewers, and #BCPSBlue trended twice – in the mid-morning and late afternoon.

The community fully embraced Team BCPS Day. Schools expressed their positive feelings using artwork, writing, and fun music videos. The spirit of the day was incorporated into lessons about Picasso, teamwork, and values. Families posed in blue before leaving for work and school. Business and educational partners – including American College of Education, the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), Daly Computers, First Financial Federal Credit Union, GWWO Architects, and Zest Social Media Solutions – boosted BCPS. In addition, the Baltimore County Public Library participated in a major way, sending photos of its leadership team as well as photos of staff from the Arbutus, Catonsville, Cockeysville, North Point, Owings Mills, Parkville, Pikesville,Randallstown, Rosedale, White Marsh, and Woodlawn branches.

“In just a few short years, Team BCPS Day has become a much-anticipated tradition,” said Superintendent Dr. S. Dallas Dance. “It’s a great way to launch the second half of the school year and to celebrate our accomplishments, our unity, and our connections to the community. We deeply appreciate our stakeholders’ participation and the pride they demonstrate in being part of Team BCPS.”

Here are this year’s honorees for best BCPS blue-themed images of the day:

Overwhelmingly Adorable – All the children of Baltimore County Public Schools (We can’t pick!)

Best use of logo

• Edmondson Heights ES
• Edmondson Heights celebrating

Happiest school bus moment

• From the Casserlys (Rebecca Casserly, a Cromwell Valley Elementary teacher, putting her son on the bus to Mays Chapel Elementary)

Best staff group

• Glyndon ES where a love for teaching never ends

Best legacy alumni who work for BCPS)

• BCPS educated and employed (Keishauna Banks, library media specialist at Deer Park Elementary)
• Team BCPS sisters born and raised, (Kori Snair, a Kindergarten teacher at Gunpowder Elementary, and Robyn Wolf, a special education teacher at Glyndon Elementary)

Best nonhuman Team BCPS members

• Loch Raven HS’s Lulu rocking BCPS blue (with Loch Raven High Principal Bonnie Lambert)
• Teacher’s pet Lyons Mill (belongs to Howard Franklin, school counselor, Lyons Mill Elementary)
• David Robb and family

Best lesson about teamwork

• Riderwood ES exploring the meaning of team
• Winand ES students created 500 link chain to show their team spirit
• Norwood learning about teamwork values

Best custom-decorated frame

• Team Career and Technology Education making sure students are career ready

Best staff video

• Office of Enterprise Applications

Best hearts

• All blue from Vincent Farms ES (Grade 5 student Subomi Osoba)

Best emojis

• BCPS blumojis from Deer Park ES

Best college spirit

• UCLA (Jill Snell, S.T.A.T. teacher, Rodgers Forge Elementary, and Jen Piet, resource teacher, Organizational Development)

Best onesie

• Carroll Manor ES

Best blue suede shoes

• Even my feet are rocking blue, Chrissie Swanson, Educational Options

Best BCPS formation

• Edmondson Heights Kindergarten teachers

Most far-flung

• From Loch Raven HS to Abu Dhabi (A photo of Jodi Gratman, former social studies chair at Loch Raven High, now teaching in Abu Dhabi – 7,005 miles away)

Most bespoke

• Lyons Mill friends (Sidney Chambers, daughter of Harvey Chambers, principal at Windsor Mill Middle School, and Justin Ogunlesi, students in Mrs. Diener’s Grade 1 class)
• Harvey Chambers, Principal, Windsor Mill MS

Best hair

• Catonsville High School (Grade 12 student Kayla Kellam)
• Chase ES (Grade 5 student Jalen Mandley)

Best music video

• Rodgers Forge ES

Best blue glow

• Owings Mills ES PreK glow

Best headpieces

• Church Lane kindergarten

Best tees

• College and Career Readiness

Best appreciation of blue crabs

• Pinewood students exploring the Chesapeake Bay

Best superheroes

• Pleasant Plains super students, super teachers (Grade 4 student Anjelina Davis-Johnson and S.T.A.T. teacher Elizabeth Askine)

Best faux fur

• Franklin ES (Grade 1 student Conor McGeehan with grandmother and volunteer Arlene Bloom)

Best wordplay

• Kingsville Elementary blue-tiful

Future Team BCPS members

• past, current and future BCPS students Westchester ES (Kindergarten student Samuel Dembeck, Grade 3 teacher Krissy Weber, S.T.A.T. teacher Amanda Crabb, and Kindergarten student Jude Buckley-Misra)

Best mascot

• Oliver Beach

Best dab

• Chesapeake Terrace

Best use of drone

• Greenwood employees

Best celebrity cameo

• Michael Jackson is celebrating at Church Lane

Best hipster plaid

• Battle Monument

Largest group

• Everyone at Mays Chapel

Smurfiest

• Team BCPS Math

Newest member of Team BCPS

• Future BCPS students (the sons of Jamie Bakert, of Microsoft, a member of the Education Foundation’s Board of Directors)

Best art re-enactment

• Pinewood student as a Picasso painting (Grade 5 student Brendan Altman re-enacting Picasso’s Old Man with Guitar)

Best service to the community

• Rodgers Forge Kindergarteners collecting cans

Best jewelry

• Team BCPS earrings from Holabird STEM

Best multilingual spirit

• ESOL video

Most literary

• Owings Mills ES even the books are blue

Separated at birth? Best twins

• Middle River Middle School (Grade 8 student Damaris Miller with Assistant Principal Kristi Allan)

Best tutu

• Woodbridge (Alexis Mileto and students, Woodbridge Elementary)

Best embodiment of Team BCPS

• Glyndon students sharing their one word
• Middleborough ES

In addition, secondary schools’ participation in Team BCPS Day is on the rise. Much appreciation to the following schools:

Middle Schools

Arbutus, Catonsville, Dumbarton, Franklin, Holabird, Loch Raven Academy, Middle River, Northwest Academy of Health Sciences, Perry Hall, Pine Grove, Ridgely, Southwest Academy, Sparrows Point, Sudbrook, and Windsor Mill

High Schools

Dundalk (girls basketball), Hereford, Kenwood (World Languages Dept.), Loch Raven, Owings Mills (Eagles), Parkville, Randallstown, Sparrows Point, and Woodlawn High

More than 500 photos and videos from the day can be found at https://www.flickr.com/photos/bcps/albums and additional resources, contributions, and information may be found at the Team BCPS web page at www.bcps.org/teambcps/.