Reply to Bridges - Opinions Needed

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[quote=Anonymous]We love Bridges. Our lead teacher is very experienced, warm, loves the kids. Knows her stuff. And the assistant is also super experienced and top notch. I don't know if it's all the classes, but in our class they do a fantastic job of incorporating science into play. My kid was barely three and explaining the difference between solids and liquids and why the leaves were falling from the trees.

They also have a heavy literacy component. A few of the older kids in her class are reading and writing. My kiddo is a young 3 but has nailed all her letters and their sounds. And she's sounding out basic 3 and 4- letter words, on her own, when we're reading at home. We have a couple of friends at Appletree Columbia Heights, and when it comes to academics, I don't think that Bridges is quite as hard core as Appletree. But my kiddo is super excited when it's her day to bring a book in to "read" to class and to take questions about the book she brought in.

I've noticed lately she's got her numbers up to maybe 50s or 60s. And she can do basic addition and subtraction. I'm not talking worksheets (I haven't seen any worksheets) am talking real life  -- like when she complained that I had eaten two of her five strawberries, leaving her only three. (Five is bigger!)

I like that her class plays a lot. Most days she comes home with paint spots that haven't been thoroughly scrubbed from her hands or forehead. Yesterday, she came home in someone else's back-up clothes, and she informed me the entire class got soaked playing in the snow. (Parent fail -- forgot to trade out her fall back-up outfit.) They've baked bread and made marshmallows. I think they cook or prepare some kind of food every week. (They usually eat it in class, so I only hear about it later.)

I like the diversity. I like that it's a great mix of kids from middle-class and poorer families. I like that all the parents & caregivers, no matter what their means, are super engaged. At all the big events, just about every kid in our class has had a parent or guardian there. My kiddo isn't special needs, but I like the inclusion model. I like that she gets access and attention from the extra teachers who cycle through the classroom to help the few kids who do have developmental issues. I get a ton of feedback from both her teachers on what she's rocking and what we might want to practice at home.

But we love Bridges mostly because the kiddo loves it. She loves her friends. She loves her teachers. She even loves after care, which just as the principal warned us, doesn't have all the bells and whistles that other programs have. There was an afternoon this week where I sat there waiting 20 minutes for her to finish building a rocket ship with these tubes to fly to the house her best bud had just built. When school was closed last week, she couldn't wait to go back. The child begs to go when she's running a 103 degree fever.

I sent my husband to all the open houses last year, and he ended up crossing off our list a few charter schools that get rave reviews here, because he said the classrooms lacked joy. I can say that Bridges offers a lot of joy. I don't know what things are going to look like up to 5th grade. It's clear a lot of kids in her class are going to join siblings and go in-boundary to closer, neighborhood schools in K. But our plan is to stick it out through 5th.

To the previous poster who knocked Bridges, I would suggest the first week or two is kind of chaotic at a lot public schools. We've been at Bridges since the first day of class and there were no major red flags for us.[/quote]

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