Commit to What You Promise!

Tim Castanza • Cahn Fellow 2022

Just five years ago, in September 2019, Bridge Preparatory Charter School(“Bridge Prep”) became the first public school in New York State designed specifically with a mission of serving students with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences. Our historic authorization by the New York State Board of Regents represented a major victory for so many students and families in New York City and across the state, who had been advocating for years for a public school to open and be designed to meet the needs of this group of students who remain at great risk of academic failure.

To date, our journey to date has been filled with many ups and downs, victories and setbacks, and reflection, which is critical for all schools (especially new ones)- all of which have taught us valuable lessons. At the start of this Fellowship (during our fourth year of Operation), we identified school culture as an area we wanted to focus on- an area that may have been taken for granted during the excitement and craziness of our first few years. Our project shows how reinvesting our staff and engaging our students in ways that are aligned to our core values and beliefs helps us get closer to delivering on the promise that our school, and its mission offers to thousands of at-risk students in NYC.