Mrs. Joyce Grand Bids Farewell to Her BT Family

It’s been 37 years for me at BT,
And I never would have dreamed that’s how it would be.
Somehow it happened – this life-long career,
With colleagues and friends that I hold so dear.
And – oh – what I’ve seen, and – oh – how we’ve grown,
From a small Jewish day school, who would have known?

When I was hired, Dr. Schorr was the new assistant principal and the following year they asked her to take over as principal. She said she would fill in until they could find a replacement.

Our whole school occupied the two floors that are now the Middle School, and we were growing fast. I was in the classroom near the stairwell and soon moved my way down the hall. We had the top PreSchool in town, a growing Lower School and a small growing Middle School.

After several years, our Lower and Middle Schools had grown to the point where we needed more space, so I was moved to a trailer, where my fourth grade was housed, in three trailers on the front parking lot, while a new wing was added. One day, in the middle of the school year, we moved back in, and I had that big beautiful room with lockers in it at the end of the hall. Now it is divided into two rooms.

And we continued to grow and Rabbi Wohlberg and Dr. Schorr’s dream of a high school began to unfold. A ninth grade class began in the house next to the back field, and soon we had a tenth grade and so on until it happened. We had a graduating class!

Now we needed a real High School building – amazing!!

And soon another move was in store for me. With the land owned out in Glyndon, a brand new Lower School was built. Our growing school on Old Court Road filled up what was our Lower School. We were given boxes and labels and packed everything in our classrooms except the furniture, and we all worked through Labor Day weekend in order to begin on time. I’ll never forget that first day of school, raising both the American and Israeli flags in Glyndon and singing Hatikvah with tears streaming down my face. For the 5+ years we had out there, I called it my BT Country School. I loved looking out of my classroom window at the bunks from the old camp that was there – it was really a beautiful setting, but too far away from our home!

And so again, a new building, a state of the art Lower School Building. We packed once again and moved during our Winter Break! And that’s where I’ve been ever since, in Room 30 at the end of the hall.

Why did this happen? It’s because of all of you, and those that came before you, that have worked so hard under Dr. Schorr’s leadership and have made BT the amazing institution it is today.

Yet, with all of these changes and all of this growth, one thing has remained constant – and that is the feeling of family, our BT community, and that’s what has kept me here, and that’s the part I’ll never leave – my students, their families, and my dear talented, amazing colleagues and leadership, my friends!!

Dr. Schorr, you put your confidence in me from the beginning and gave me the opportunity to grow and learn, and I will always be grateful for that!

It’s been 37 years for me at BT,
And I never would have dreamed that’s how it would be.
Somehow it happened – this life-long career,
With colleagues and friends that I hold so dear.
And – oh – what I’ve seen, and – oh – how we’ve grown
From a small Jewish day school – who would have known?

And so, to you, my BT family, I say thank you for all that you are to me, all that I’ve learned from you, and all that we’ve shared – I feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity to call this place my second home!
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Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School

Learning together. For life.
Baltimore’s only Jewish independent preparatory school serving PreSchool through Grade 12.