This year the freshman Bridge Program–a way for all the new 9th graders to meet before the school year begins–was condensed from seven to two days, running from August 21 to August 22.    

Prior to the last school year, the Bridge Program ran for seven days from nine a.m. to noon. The program ran a similar approach the year before that, but instead of seven days, it ran for five days with the same timeframe day to day. The 2014-2015 program ran nine to noon for two weeks.

Although this year’s Bridge Program was scheduled for just two days, the 18 new freshmen were expected to participate from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m each day. “It’s essentially four half days,” Upper School English Teacher Cory Zeller said, “with a half-day added to the retreat and a couple hours added to the freshman orientation.”

While the program changed in these ways, its intentions did not change. “The goals are still the same,” Upper School Counselor Binita Donohue said, “which are to orient the kids to the building, to each other, and hopefully to get a few social relationships with other students who were new to Parker at one point or another.”

The curriculum and general activities were similar to those of past years. “The students will be doing ice breakers, talking about progressive education, doing a scavenger hunt, going over the schedule, covering Parker lingo,” Donohue said, “and spending time with their mentors.”

The mentors who helped lead the Bridge Program were current Upper School students who participated in Bridge themselves. According to Donohue, having mentors with experience in Bridge is invaluable to helping guide the new students through the Parker norms.

Although the 9th grade grade heads believe that shortening bridge is advantageous, senior and former Bridge participant Camryn Oliff thinks differently. “I think that shortening the program makes sense when it comes to learning about the ins and outs of Parker,” Oliff said. “However, the biggest takeaway for me was the friendships I made and those cannot happen in two days.”

Freshman Bridge participant Oscar Fardon had different thoughts. Fardon said, “I think two days was a good time to get acquainted with other new students and teachers and left just enough time to be comfortable with everyone by the end.”

Although Bridge achieved its goal of helping the new freshman meet one another, the program lacked in other respects, according to Fardon. “I think that Bridge could have done a better job introducing us to the building because I still don’t know where a lot of the classrooms are,” he said, “and I generally don’t know where everything is.”   

A new idea generated by Zeller, Upper School Science teacher and co-gradehead Ryan Zaremba, and Donohue was to devote more time to having the freshman together as an entire class and not in separate groups as new and returning students. “All of the freshman will be receiving their iPads and emails together as a grade,” Zeller said, “so we’re putting some things that we would do in Bridge and now doing those things with the whole ninth grade.”

Oliff echoed Zeller’s comments. “I think the biggest struggle for new-to-Parker students is making friends with kids who have already been at Parker,” Oliff said. “Now that Bridge has tried to address that problem, there will be a smoother transition for everyone.”  

Zaremba believes that consistent evaluation of the Bridge Program and its objectives fits with Parker’s goals as a school. “As a progressive institution, we should continually be reflecting and refining our practices to serve our students best,” Zaremba said. “The Bridge program is part of this process.”