Guiding Principles
The design of The Bridge School's Education Program is guided by our values of:
- Supporting our students' ability to communicate functionally in the educational environment
- Identifying the most effective and efficient modes of communication across communication partners, environments, instructional contexts, and social activities
- Providing students access to the general education curriculum through active participation in all classroom activities
- Supporting the functional use of assistive technologies, including augmentative and alternative communication devices, techniques and strategies to maximize participation in daily life
- Providing inclusion experiences and meaningful participation, both academically and socially, in appropriate grade-level general education settings and the community at large
- Using both student-centered and family-centered planning approaches that incorporate each student’s and family's preferences and priorities
- As part of instruction, providing training for communication partners in students' environments including home, school, and community
- Ensuring educational accountability such that student assessment appropriately measures and tracks student progress to report to families, to guide instructional adjustments and decision-making, and for IEP purposes
- Building functional and age-appropriate life skills across domains
- Expanding our students' social networks
- Encouraging self-determination as a life skill that leads to a positive quality of life
- Using research findings as a resource for practice
- Transitioning students to their home school districts in the least restrictive environment
- Providing long-term support to students and their educational teams in the home school district