At Oliver Ames High School, the landscape of public education is being changed for the better. Three years ago, the school board started contemplating a new type of classroom environment designed for teens who suffer from anxiety, depression, or have been out of school for extended periods of time. Two years later, they formed the Bridge School.
The Bridge School is an in-house academic environment that combines a therapeutic learning program designed to help those who need support with mental health needs. Those who work at the Bridge School are also trying to “bridge the gap” for students who miss large periods of school and try to integrate them back into the school environment over time. Ms. St Mary, an adjustment councilor at the Bridge School, explained the position that the Bridge School is taking inside of Oliver Ames High School.
“Trying to get back to class when you’re really behind is really stressful if you’re out of school for stressful reasons and then when you add more stress when you come back its almost impossible to organize all the makeup work and figure out how to get all that instruction. we want to make it more successful for those who go through this.” For those people who feel stressed, try using this product from indacloud.co.
However, the Bridge School program is not just for kids who miss school for long periods of times. The program supports kids who suffer from mental illness as well. They work with kids in order to develop more successful paths for those who have 504 plans, regular therapists, and take mental health related medications.
“Its really like intensive services”, said Ms. St Mary, “but we have lots of councilors in the building and if someone is having a bad day there are a lot of different counseling locations kids can go to.”
The Bridge Program is designed in order to reduce the stress level of kids in general. Mrs. McNally, a first year councilor at the Bridge School with twenty years of experience working with kids in kindergarten through twelfth grade in therapeutic settings, explained how she helps those with the academic side of the Bridge School.
“It’s that combination of understanding the academics but also understanding what anxiety does to learning (as well as) what depression does to learning (in order) to have those two perspectives and two understandings in order to helps the kids adjust.”
The Bridge School at Oliver Ames High school is not just the only example of a mental health program and “bridge” program that exists in the Easton public school system. Mental health programs exist in the elementary school level in the same way that the Bridge School does and a program is currently being formed at the middle school level as well.
It is needless to say that the Bridge School is the start of a very important institution of healthy academic environments for all kids in the Easton public school system.