Our Philosophy
Bridges Academy is a college preparatory school dedicated to educating twice-exceptional students (gifted students with learning differences) in Grades 4-12. Its board, administration, faculty, and staff believe that a program designed around the strengths of students offers the best chance of ensuring student success. To this end, Bridges Academy is committed to providing a student-centered, talent- and strength-based model to optimize each student's intellectual, academic, and social development.

​We recognize that the cognitive, psychological and physical needs of twice-exceptional students are often profoundly different from those of their neurotypical peers. We understand that their asynchronous development does not follow the same pattern as their non twice-exceptional peers. We recognize that difficulties in one or more areas do not in any way preclude the existence or the enormity of their gifts and talents in other areas. Therefore, we believe the following:
  1. 2e students thrive academically, socially, and emotionally in a safe community where they are valued for what they can do not by what they cannot do. 
  2. 2e students benefit from a learning environment in which  instruction is dual-differentiated, and classes are small.
  3. 2e students need intellectual, social, and emotional peers to stimulate learning  and create friendships​
​4.   2e students deserve faculty and staff members who are highly intelligent and patient, who respect student abilities, and who perceive students as talented young people with great potential.
5.  2e students need parents that understand and accept that their children are unique and capable of forging their own future and identities. Parents become opportunity makers, role models, and partners in learning.
6.   2e students thrive when they become aware of their strengths and challenges, self advocate, and become the principal architects of their lives.

​We recognize that in order to educate twice-exceptional students, educators must take a myriad of variables into consideration. The Bridges Academy student-centered Multiple Perspectives Model dynamically and simultaneously addresses six highly complex critical educational variables necessary in understanding the whole child: gifts & talents, interests, family context, developmental asynchrony, social & emotional profiles, and learning differences.
 
Each variable must be understood independently and in connection to the whole.  An exploration of these variables in the context of each individual situation helps us to fully understand the profile of each student. Our teachers, administrators, and support staff use this model to guide programming, curriculum design, and differentiation to creatively solve complex questions as to how to bring the student, educational environment, and family into productive alignment.
 
They further guide us in providing academic and social emotional support systems, at school and at home, and monitoring and adjusting for physical and psychological health.

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