Feedback on Bridges PCS?

[Anonymous]

What is aftercare like? Reviews seem mixed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Current Bridges parent, and we will be leaving after this year. Although I have heard about a lot of happy families at the school, our child's teachers are, at best, lackluster, and at worst very poorly equipped for their job--there was an incident in our classroom of *highly* inappropriate discipline, which was really disappointing to us. (Even the administration, when alerted, agreed that it went against DC and school policy.) Our classroom is disorganized and pretty sad-looking, although I suppose the new building will improve that. For what it's worth, our child's favorite part of the day is aftercare.

I've tried contacting the director about a couple of things and never heard back, which is also kind of a bummer.

If your child has special needs, I do think it has the potential to be a great option--they have all kinds of services available in house, which makes life a lot easier. I am glad the school exists for special needs kids in the district, since I think it does a real service in the charter sector, which doesn't traditionally have a great track record in serving special ed populations.

Finally, we have found there to be zero sense of community, and don't even have a list of the kids in our child's class. They tried to put together a directory this year---and kudos to the folks involved for how much work it took--but participation was pretty weak. Unless you happen to catch a parent of a child your child is friends with at pick up or drop off, you may have trouble organizing playdates or birthdays. There is definitely a small group of parents who are trying to make more of a community feel, but it seems to be an uphill battle.

Wow. We could have written this down to the exact word. I might eliminate "highly" before "inappropriate discipline," but that's our only quibble. Our child has had the exact same experience this year, including aftercare being the favorite part of the day.

I sense that families have very disparate experiences at Bridges, depending on your child's needs and his/her teaching staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current Bridges parent, and we will be leaving after this year. Although I have heard about a lot of happy families at the school, our child's teachers are, at best, lackluster, and at worst very poorly equipped for their job--there was an incident in our classroom of *highly* inappropriate discipline, which was really disappointing to us. (Even the administration, when alerted, agreed that it went against DC and school policy.) Our classroom is disorganized and pretty sad-looking, although I suppose the new building will improve that. For what it's worth, our child's favorite part of the day is aftercare.

I've tried contacting the director about a couple of things and never heard back, which is also kind of a bummer.

If your child has special needs, I do think it has the potential to be a great option--they have all kinds of services available in house, which makes life a lot easier. I am glad the school exists for special needs kids in the district, since I think it does a real service in the charter sector, which doesn't traditionally have a great track record in serving special ed populations.

Finally, we have found there to be zero sense of community, and don't even have a list of the kids in our child's class. They tried to put together a directory this year---and kudos to the folks involved for how much work it took--but participation was pretty weak. Unless you happen to catch a parent of a child your child is friends with at pick up or drop off, you may have trouble organizing playdates or birthdays. There is definitely a small group of parents who are trying to make more of a community feel, but it seems to be an uphill battle.

Wow. We could have written this down to the exact word. I might eliminate "highly" before "inappropriate discipline," but that's our only quibble. Our child has had the exact same experience this year, including aftercare being the favorite part of the day.

I sense that families have very disparate experiences at Bridges, depending on your child's needs and his/her teaching staff.

I suspect I know exactly what teacher you guys are talking about. I feel bad for anyone who is in her class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is aftercare like? Reviews seem mixed.

We've been periodically unhappy with aftercare, in contrast to some others. Pre-K 3, so it's possible this doesn't extend to other age groups, since ages are generally separated, though I believe some of these issues impacted Prek 4 and K too. It started out fine - they seemed to have a good schedule and structure and a mix of activities. There were some staffing changes and it all went down hill. No structure or activities. Then staffing slipped, to the point where they, at least several times, were ridiculously out of a ratio (like 1 staff for 20 kids, or 2 staff for nearly 30, when they've promised 1:10) and I felt it was a huge huge safety issue. Exacerbated by the fact that staff weren't really supervising at all, so it was a chaotic free for all for most of it. And they'd combine groups so groups were huge and there weren't enough seats for kids in a room during snack etc. And my kid was completely overwhelmed. Also they're not licensed- they should have been by November, but there's no way with the ratios and lack of programming that they could have gotten it.

We should have said something sooner, though frankly I think the program should be well run enough that it never should have gotten to that point of ratios so inappropriate - parents shouldn't have to be watching out for that (and wouldn't have any way of knowing most of the time. They immediately addressed both issues (ratios/safety and then chaos/lack of structure or programming), to their credit, but I'm still disturbed it was allowed to devolve for so long. (The school admin at least said they were similarly disturbed by the situation, I have no reason to think they weren't/didn't follow through on some additional oversight they said they were going to do).

I'm surprised after the issues last year that Bridges remained with them - for the cost, which is higher (though I guess lower than last year?), I expect more. And they do offer some enrichment classes - but for an additional fee. I was far more impressed with the YMCA run care elsewhere, for a similar fee, which included some of this enrichment type stuff as part of the program (that said I heard other people grumble about that and were unhappy with them, so clearly that wasn't a resounding success either). I'm still not at all sure what they do all the time, though they apparently have some sort of curriculum/programming - there's virtually no information or communication. Thing have improved, not quite to the level as before, but back to acceptable. But it's the one part of the program I'm not happy about and we won't be using it next year if we can avoid it. We contemplated pulling our kid this year, but the logistics of finding replacement care, particularly with the Wednesday early dismissal (which I hate, from this perspective), made it too challenging. But, had they not immediately improved, we would have figured out how to do something else no matter how expensive.

I do think parents may not have been aware of some of these issues - I'm pretty sure they didn't inform anyone of the ratio problems, and we happened into the info by luck or happenstance (for a while it just seemed like utter chaos at pick up, and I just couldn't even make contact with a staff member, who never seemed to be near by, but it wasn't clear the ratios were so out of whack and so I had a sense it wasn't going well, but no specifics to pin it on). But I have heard some concerns about lack of activities, use of videos on a more than occasional/fun Friday type basis at the other campus too - totally second hand though. And it's possible the non-3 year old groups run better.

(Can I just say I think it's sad that a school who didn't do well by a general ed kid is considered a good option for special needs kids, because there are just do few? Not a criticism of the parent who made the comment at all - I think it's true actually, just that I wish the state of things for kids with special needs were such that a school with not good experiences general ed side weren't one of the better options, like some of those really great for general ed kids also made the (legally required) effort to serve special needs kids well - I know some do, but many don't.)

[Anonymous]

Overall, I would say good school for pre-K, but still unproven in the elementary grades. It should be interesting to see what the test scores look like now that they have third graders.

The goal of inclusion is a great one, but it gets more difficult as the kids get older, especially when you have kids with behavioral/emotional disturbances who can be quite aggressive.

[Anonymous]

We also haven't seen any evidence of the individualized/differentiated instruction that we thought was part of their being an inclusion school. Our kid's class is at least a third special needs, and we understood that each child would be taught according to his or her level. Instead, our sense is that the teachers have their hands full with managing a class with such a wide range of kids (several of whom are non-verbal and not potty-trained), which admittedly seems like a tough job! I like the fact that our kid is seeing such a range of abilities/needs, but I don't think they have the bandwidth (at least in our class) to do much for the less need-intensive children in the class.

[Anonymous]

It's so funny. Just last year everyone was so happy with the school (exept the aftercare) and now all the negative comments. Hey folks, there is no perfect school. For one child Bridges would be great, for another child not.

[Anonymous]

I don't think anyone here believes there is a perfect school. We picked Bridges over a couple of other places, though, largely because we hadn't heard any complaints. It would have been helpful to us last year to know some of the challenges, since I think folks who aren't happy haven't really spoken up. Of course every parent needs to evaluate a school for their own child's needs, but it doesn't mean people shouldn't raise concerns based on their experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We also haven't seen any evidence of the individualized/differentiated instruction that we thought was part of their being an inclusion school. Our kid's class is at least a third special needs, and we understood that each child would be taught according to his or her level. Instead, our sense is that the teachers have their hands full with managing a class with such a wide range of kids (several of whom are non-verbal and not potty-trained), which admittedly seems like a tough job! I like the fact that our kid is seeing such a range of abilities/needs, but I don't think they have the bandwidth (at least in our class) to do much for the less need-intensive children in the class.

What do they say when you raise this with the teacher during PT conferences, etc?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think anyone here believes there is a perfect school. We picked Bridges over a couple of other places, though, largely because we hadn't heard any complaints. It would have been helpful to us last year to know some of the challenges, since I think folks who aren't happy haven't really spoken up. Of course every parent needs to evaluate a school for their own child's needs, but it doesn't mean people shouldn't raise concerns based on their experiences.

Yes, and as someone who likes the school, I do think it's a problem that there's apparently enough unevenness in staff perhaps, or support, that some people walk away with such different experiences. Because then it becomes luck of the draw as to classroom teacher. I'd expect a solid program to have overall solid staff and evenness in experience, though there's always a chance of a poor fit/mistake or two. I think it's a problem at a lot of schools - was at our DCPS - though I'll allow that experiences vary even within a single classroom (in our experience - from we can make this work even if it's not perfect to I'm pulling my kid now - in part depending on kids needs), and so that's not all of the reason behind the difference.

For the differentiation - our small group time is differentiated, kids were grouped based on levels/where they are for literacy and math - other PP, do they not do that for your kid? I also think there may be some other groupings time where its taken into account, but much of time isn't really instructional time differentiatable in that way I think. Outside of large group times, the direct instructional time is pretty small at the pre-K level, but within that they split by level. I do see them individualize and differentiate in other ways through out (assistive communication devices, alternative methods of choosing a circle activity such as choice via picture, cubby labels with both child's name (for those able to identify their name) and a picture (for those who could identify it by picture), that sort of thing).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's so funny. Just last year everyone was so happy with the school (exept the aftercare) and now all the negative comments. Hey folks, there is no perfect school. For one child Bridges would be great, for another child not.

I think Bridges just had a lot of boosters in prior years who weren't honest about the full experience. Now people seem to be a bit more honest.

[Anonymous]

To be fair, I think that different people can express different opinions and all still be honest. There are many people who are still very happy with the school. It is obviously a good thing to seek out both the good and the bad information about any school you're considering, and this board can be helpful sometimes, but I'd be hesitant to accept the relatively small number of opinions that show up here about any school--positive or negative--as anything more than a small number of individual opinions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, I think that different people can express different opinions and all still be honest. There are many people who are still very happy with the school. It is obviously a good thing to seek out both the good and the bad information about any school you're considering, and this board can be helpful sometimes, but I'd be hesitant to accept the relatively small number of opinions that show up here about any school--positive or negative--as anything more than a small number of individual opinions.

I agree, but if you look at prior years, other than talking about aftercare debacles last year, no one said anything negative about Bridges in my many searches. Like PP, it's one reason why we ranked it high--I mean, if DCUM seems to be in agreement that Bridges is good, then it has to be good, right? DCUM doesn't agree about anything.

I'm glad that people are being more honest and balanced in their assessments. I think it will make it more likely that people who apply in part because of what they read on DCUM will actually want to be there--they will have a more balanced understanding of what to expect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To be fair, I think that different people can express different opinions and all still be honest. There are many people who are still very happy with the school. It is obviously a good thing to seek out both the good and the bad information about any school you're considering, and this board can be helpful sometimes, but I'd be hesitant to accept the relatively small number of opinions that show up here about any school--positive or negative--as anything more than a small number of individual opinions.

I agree, but if you look at prior years, other than talking about aftercare debacles last year, no one said anything negative about Bridges in my many searches. Like PP, it's one reason why we ranked it high--I mean, if DCUM seems to be in agreement that Bridges is good, then it has to be good, right? DCUM doesn't agree about anything.

I'm glad that people are being more honest and balanced in their assessments. I think it will make it more likely that people who apply in part because of what they read on DCUM will actually want to be there--they will have a more balanced understanding of what to expect.

+1. We are a family that left on somewhat bad terms after a couple of incidents that very negatively affected my child. I was hesitant to write about it here when people were asking for feedback because I felt like we were the only ones who had a bad experience given the glowing reviews from 98% of posters. I truly thought that it was just us and didn't want to badmouth the school.

[Anonymous]

I agree that honest and balanced assessments are valuable and that it's better for everyone when people who end up at a school really want to be there. I think it's a little unfair to suggest that people who have voiced positive opinions in the past are being less honest than those with criticisms -- that's all. What may look like a shift on DCUM from year to year could also just reflect a change in who is reading and posting at one time or another.