Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Bridges - 2e school in Los Angles?

Bridges is a 2-e school in Culver City (Los Angeles).
http://www.bridges.edu/

Anyone know anything about this school. Anyone talked with them or could point me to honest reviews. Bridges is far enough away from me to be impractical but not impossible. All I know about it is the web-site. The Bridges web site does talk about possible dorms for the 2015/16 school year, so even if things calm down I might go for a look during open enrollment next year.

Things are getting bad enough here that I'm starting to feel I can't get the public school to work for my DS14. Things are going downhill fast, as we still have 5 weeks of school. Just enough to completely shoot himself in the foot. I don't really want to switch schools, and don't know if it's even at all possible for next year. My son has been doing much better socially and loves the marching band and the independence of biking himself to school.

I know full time homeschooling is NOT going to work for us. There really aren't a lot of other good options that I think would work for my son. What I would love to try is homeschooling/online schooling for one or two of his classes but I know the school won't allow that for any "required" class ie.. English or U.S. History.

bluemagic, I'm not in LA and I don't know anything personally about Bridges, so I can't help you there - but fwiw, the first thing I thought of when reading your post was how we found the school that truly helped our 2e ds - we learned about it, and about why it would fit our ds compared to other schools in our area - from ds' neuropsychologist. She sees a wide variety of students with a wide variety of challenges, and over the years she has become very familiar with the schools in the area from the experiences she hears about from her clients. Another useful source of information for us was the parent advocate in our area who works with families navigating the SPED system in our public school district - she had a lot of knowledge about the local public schools based on feedback she'd heard from the parents she works with.

Looking back over your posts, my guess is that there is one crucial piece of data in all of this that is missing for your ds - an accurate picture of what's really going on. It sounds like he would benefit from either a neuropsych or psychoeducational evaluation that looks at the full spectrum of what may be going on with him. I wouldn't rely on just sending him to a 2e school to solve the issues that he's experienced - if you send him there, or if you keep him where he is - the thing that is more important is really understanding as much as you can about the nature of his challenges. I'm wondering if you've ever suspected a language challenge? I'm wondering that based on his having an older sister with a diagnosed language disorder - it's possible that as a HG student he's been able to compensate in ways that make it difficult to see what's really going on.

I hope you are able to find out more info about this school, and also able to find some help for your ds too. FWIW, I'd be inclined to go ahead and contact the school and go in for a tour even if you don't have any reliable feedback on it yet. It's not going to hurt just to take a look - and that first tour may give you immediate info that it's *not* the right school - if that happens you can cross it off your list of things to think about. If you tour the school and like what you see, then you can keep looking for more input.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Polarbear thanks. I don't think we could really get into this school for fall. Or that it is practical to have him attend unless they opened their dorms. Cost is another issue, but I guess it's better to spend they money that was saved for him to attend college. Partly I'm curious if anyone has an experience because I've checked out private schools in the past after being wowed by their web-site and been very disappointed.

I am working on getting him an evaluation. It's just slow, and things are going bad quickly right now. D's might possibly be in the picture if he doesn't pick things up. The CST meeting made my son extremely anxious and now he is less capable of doing homework than before. It didn't really solve anything, they won't test unless he is still having problems in the fall. I meet with the private educational therapist this weekend, and hopefully he will start with her this week. I have a call into a psychologist and some queries out to see if I can get another suggestion.