When you live on an island you have a unique appreciation for the importance of bridges. Remember when the I-90 bridge opened in1993? What a community celebration we had — a ribbon-cutting, a 5K run, a dance, fireworks. Because we live on an island, we know what a great thing it is to open a new, expanded bridge to our community.
It is time to once again get out the big red bow and the enormous scissors to celebrate the opening of another new bridge on Mercer Island — BRIDGES2, the new high school advisory program.
This new bridge is made, not of concrete and steel, but of relationships and community. While it doesn’t link cities, it does link people, both students and staff, at Mercer Island High School. It has been a bridge that has been planned and designed for many years, and one that promises to make Mercer Island High School a better place to learn, to grow and to work.
It is cause for much celebration.
BRIDGES2 is an acronym devised by students that neatly sums up its mission: Building Relationships In Diverse Groups Everywhere for Staff & Students. It is the direct result of the high school’s site improvement plan and meets goal three to “provide an environment in which meaningful connections between members of the educational community will occur.” It is a solid step in fulfilling the desired ends for students expressed in Mercer Island School District Board Policy E-3 “Citizenship and Personal Development.”
Next year BRIDGES2 will place every student at MIHS in a teacher-led group of 20 or so students, evenly spread across the freshman through senior classes.
It will be a place for freshman orientation and a place where every student can build a relationship with a caring adult as well as a place for students to find friends in other grades and with different experiences.
It will be a place where the students can receive support, help and encouragement to complete their culminating project, required of all graduating seniors in Washington State beginning in 2008.
It will be a place where students are given opportunity, guidance and support to become leaders as each group will be co-led by two upperclassmen.
It will be a place where students and staff can have conversations about topics that matter to our students such as academic expectations, stress, depression, and cheating.
It will be a place where students will complete state mandated curriculum on HIV/AIDS education and bullying.
It will be a place where students will be given the opportunity to explore their futures through Career Day; where they can find the value in supporting their communities through Day of Service; where they can explore issues of diversity and respect through Day of Respect.
There is much to celebrate.
Creating an advisory program that builds relationships and creates meaningful connections between the members of the high school community has been in the works for a long time. MIHS Principal Judy Smith proposed it in the 1990s, the Benchmark Study noted that successful schools included advisory programs. The importance of such programs to the community made the creation of a high school advisory program a key issue in the 2003 School Board election. After two years of pilot programs, numerous refinements, countless surveys of staff, students and parents, the current proposal was created, and approved by the high school staff in April. We are grateful to all of them for their efforts.
As parent members of the BRIDGES2 committee this year, and as members of prior committees that have worked on creating an advisory program, we are encouraged and excited about the permanent implementation of BRIDGES2 next year. We are firm believers in building BRIDGES2, and celebrating its completion. Bring on the fireworks!
Mary Jo Bruckner and Terry Pottmeyer are parent members of the MIHS BRIDGES2 Committee.
