FBRA Blog
Each fall, the school asks our community to contribute to the school by making a donation to the Salamander Fund, FBRA’s annual fund. Donations to the Salamander Fund go directly into this year’s operating budget, paying for things like staff salaries, health care benefits, outdoor programming, music instruction, and even the electricity to power the […]
Read MoreThree weeks into the start of school, we asked 6th graders to share their impressions of FBRA with us.
Read MoreWill Yeiser, FBRA Executive Director and Co-Founder The FBRA Experamid is the brainchild of former Girls Outdoor Program Director and founding math teacher Emily Shanblatt, and it is essentially an infographic that communicates our collective purpose here at the French Broad River Academy. We have formally adopted the Experamid framework schoolwide, and if you […]
Read MoreWe get asked several times each week when the Maria Noakes Outdoor Center will be completed. Unfortunately, COVID 19 created problems with all sorts of manufacturing timelines and construction delays around the world. The good news is that we are almost there. Water has been brought to the building, plumbing roughed in, and the footers […]
Read MoreThe Salamander Adventure Camp took place from Monday, June 28, 2021 to Friday, July 2, 2021. The purpose of the Salamander Adventure Camp is to expose underserved fourth grade students in our local community to different experiences in the outdoors. The Salamander Adventure Camp provides structure, fun, and adventure to the lives of children. This […]
Read MoreIn late summer, we invited our alumni to come back to FBRA to join staff for a cookout and some catching up. It was great to reminisce and also find out what a few of our graduates have been up to in high school and college. We are looking to hold more alumni events including […]
Read MoreFelix Dowsley, Boys Program Director I’m willing to bet that when middle school boys hear the word courage, they picture someone like Davy Crockett or Samuel L. Jackson wrestling a grizzly bear while parachuting from a burning airplane. That, at least, is the male model of courage most often held up for them to […]
Read MoreJen Horschman, FBRA Girls Program Director At FBRA we build character; it is part of our mission. However, it is one thing to state it and quite another to share the secret sauce, to explain how it’s really done. We know the teenage brain rewires during adolescence, making new synaptic connections all the time. […]
Read MoreLessons Learned After Operating a School During a Pandemic Will Yeiser, FBRA Co-Founder & Executive Director WE MADE IT!!! As the last group of 8th grade students left campus with their families on the evening of June 4th, 2021 after our final graduation event, I finally was able to repeat these words and internalize […]
Read MoreWelcome Dorrie Sieburg to FBRA as the new Admissions and Communications Director for the Girls School. Dorrie’s work and life experience over the last twenty years have pointed her toward FBRA all along the way. After graduating from Penn State University with a BS in Education, Dorrie worked for the Student Conservation Association and Padilla […]
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