The BlendEd program will close out in 2026 as it has become academically and financially ineffective.

BlendEd is a collaborative program among seven independent schools in the Bay Area that offers extra course offerings, often in unique electives. The classes take place partially in-person and partially online, and have been offered in Branson’s course catalog for nine years. This year, all seven schools have collectively decided to end the classes.

“BlendEd was at its most successful, both in its vision and its actual creating and offering of classes, [with] the classes that schools of our size find it difficult to offer because of staffing: psychology, sociology, anthropology. [It was] kind of an opportunity to offer introductions to college majors that are very difficult to find space and time for in a high school curriculum,” Jeff Symonds, the assistant head for academics and dean of faculty, said. 

Zachary Cummins ’26 is currently taking a BlendEd class in Applied AI on Python and feels that the class has been successful. 

“It is definitely harder being online than in-person …. I’m lucky that Mr. Pound is the one teaching it, so I have access to him here at Branson,” Cummins said. “I think that the positives of the program outweigh the negatives because it allows you to learn about subjects that may not be offered at your school but still be taught by really fantastic and accredited teachers.”

Symonds feels like the program didn’t benefit students as much as it could based on the cap on enrolled students each school got for each class. 

“We were eternally frustrated because each class saved three spots per school. And so, we get 82 kids who want to take Intro to Psychology, and we’d be able to offer to three of them. So you got 79 kids who were disappointed,” Symonds said. 

Financial feasibility also accelerated BlendEd’s closure because Branson was required to provide two classes to the course listings. 

“We were losing the opportunity to teach 36 kids and ending up with only six. We’re actually teaching 30 kids from other schools in our classes, rather than just turn those classes around and offer them in house,” Symonds said. “It ended up costing somewhere around eight or nine thousand dollars per student in a chair in a BlendEd class for us, which is cost prohibitive.”

Cummins understood the financial perspective on BlendEd’s closure, but still wishes it could continue.