Brandie Rankin
2017 Trustees' Fund Award Recipient

Special Education Teacher The Bay School
Santa Cruz, Calif.

Brandie Rankin has added tremendous value to our program since she joined our team six years ago as an instructor. During her time at The Bay School, she has steadily continued her professional growth and obtained her special education teaching credential and master’s degree in Education. She is now one of our classroom teachers and has shown great commitment and dedication to our high school-aged students.

Over the past year, Brandie has accepted a number of new students into her classroom to accommodate school-wide needs. She did an outstanding job as she transitioned every single one in a thoughtful, systematic way. Brandie attends to important details and pursues high quality work. She carefully evaluates student performance on an ongoing basis and works hard to ensure students are meeting goals and objectives. She is highly skilled as both an educator and an ABA clinician.

Brandie communicates professionally and thoroughly with the families we serve. She leads a number of regular, monthly, and bi-weekly team meetings with parents and other service providers in which she provides detailed notes on student progress towards goals, and collaborates to support student learning and skill acquisition. These meetings are highly valued by all team members and students have made measurable gains as a result of Brandie facilitating this teamwork.

Brandie has also been an extremely reliable employee. In fact, she has not has a single unplanned absence from work in the past several years. Brandie shows great pride in her work and has led her classroom by this example. A parent of one of our current students wrote:

“To say Brandie is ‘hard working’ doesn’t come close to describing the time, energy, and passion she puts into her teaching. She sees her students and approaches their education in an intelligent and creative way that allows them to achieve things never dreamed possible. Everyone feels cared for by her, and in turn, she is loved.”
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