Elevate Ep 61: Dr. Holly Bernard-Bramblett, Freshman Academy Principal at Jeffersonville High School

Jason Ulm (0:02)

Welcome to The Elevate Podcast, where every leader has a story. We bring you conversations with influential leaders who are shaping our local communities. Hear about their path to leadership and experiences that define them, and how they're driving meaningful impact today.

Hey, everybody. Jason Ulm here with another episode of The Elevate Powered by Braden Podcast. And I've got a reasonably new friend with me, Dr. Holly. And, you know, our conversation, I really enjoyed the first time we had a chance to connect to maybe a month or so ago. But the conversations that we're having with for-profit, non-profit, we're talking to some higher ed individuals and we're also talking to K through 12

I love these conversations. I think it's cool to hear what's happening in the schools. It's great to hear what's going on from a technology perspective and all those different types of things. But, Dr. Holly, welcome to the show.

Holly Bernard-Bramblett (0:52)

Hi. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Jason Ulm (0:54)

Absolutely. Before we go back to your Genesis story, let's just real quickly, where are you at today and what's your role today?

Holly Bernard-Bramblett (1:02)

I'm currently the Freshman Academy Principal at Jeffersonville High School. In terms of my role, I operate as Assistant Principal and Extension of our Executive Principal, Mrs. Hall.

Our entire school is in the Academy model, so there's a principal for each Academy.

Jason Ulm (1:21)

Got it. All right. It's going to be an awful lot of fun to learn more about that because you got a couple of things I actually don't know an awful lot about, maybe our listeners don't either.

But let's go back to the beginning. Where are you from originally?

Holly Bernard-Bramblett (1:32)

I was actually born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

I'm a small town, probably 20-25 minutes outside of Iowa City. So if you know anything about sports, where the Hawkeyes play.

Jason Ulm (1:41)

That's right.

Holly Bernard-Bramblett (1:42)

Yeah. Just think Caitlin Clark. There you go. Not too far from her, so that's where I'm actually originally from. We moved to Louisville.

I was going into second grade, that summer I was going into second grade and had been there ever since.

Jason Ulm (1:58)

Okay. All right.

So high school is at Louisville. What was high school, what it looked like for you? What activities were you in and what were you doing?

Holly Bernard-Bramblett (2:05)

I went to Fern Creek High School. Basketball was my primary sport. Ran cross-country as well. My dad actually taught there while all of my siblings and I went through there. He was also my assistant coach. He coached my brothers as well.

I went through high school. I was also in an organization that focused on breast cancer awareness. It came towards the end of high school, so it was the really early stages of it. We would participate in breast cancer walks around the city, try to raise funds for communities that were focusing on breast cancer and making sure that patients had access to any sort of resources they may need.

I wish I would have gotten more involved in student government and that sort of thing. But with playing sports, it took a backseat.

Jason Ulm (3:02)

No, I understood. As you're finishing up your high school career, where do you think is going to come next? Obviously, college, university, and where do you decide to go and what do you think you're going to study?

Holly Bernard-Bramblett (3:13)

Well, honestly, I wanted to play basketball in college. I had the opportunity to do that. However, the schools that were recruiting me were smaller schools, primarily because I had an injury. I tore my ACL when I was a junior.

That probably would have been a breakout season for me. However, having to sit out of season, sit on the sidelines and view basketball from a different perspective, I started to tap into what had always been in me, but never really put on full display, which was teaching.

While you're sitting on the sidelines, you're seeing things that a coach would typically see. But as a player, sometimes when your adrenaline is going, you don't necessarily pick up on the things that you should have. It's difficult to slow your mind down and say, you probably need to take a step back and adjust this, etc. While I was that kid who would set up her stuffed animals and read to them and play school, that went away when sports got into the picture, because that was my biggest. So tearing my ACL as much of a setback as I felt like it was in the moment, I also think that it is something that propelled me into stepping more into myself and outside of sports, creating my identity beyond athleticism. So with that, I decided that I would want to go to a bigger school in terms of the university, and I was going to focus more on the academic piece. So while I made a full recovery and was able to play my senior year, my new focus became like going to a school that I would enjoy being a student as opposed to a student athlete. Okay. So I applied to multiple schools in the area, ended up choosing University of Kentucky.