Education is a team effort! DCIs work together with teachers to build our community of leaders at Bridge.

Thayer Lawson, K1 -1st Grade Dean of Coaching and Intervention, in Jen's Garden with our K2 class

Megan Malaker, 5th - 8th Grade Dean of Coaching and Intervention, with a student at graduation

Intervention

The "intervention" piece of a DCI's work includes working directly with students on academics, and six weeks into the school year, intervention is now becoming more frequent with our DCIs.

Intervention for K1-4th grade looks like pulling small groups out of normal classroom time. Small group work helps students receive individual attention and ensure their educational needs are met. In the upper division, intervention is called workshop, where Megan assigns, facilitates, and gives feedback on upper division workshop groups.

Our DCIs describe intervention work as “grounding” because it reminds them of their goal: to support teachers in increasing student success.

Teachers are especially engaged in coaching with DCIs because of their intervention work. Feedback for the teachers comes from a professional working with students who have attempted strategies themselves. To our teachers, DCI observations and insights are attested and trustworthy.

Coaching

In addition to Bridge's rigorous curriculum, we continually develop our educators to ensure top instruction strategies. Each DCI works closely with 3-4 grade levels in order to better understand the needs of each classroom. Because they work with both students and teachers, DCIs are intimately familiar with classroom dynamics and can better understand each teacher’s needs when providing feedback. Further, all of our DCIs are former Bridge teachers and are able to give concrete advice specific to Bridge.

Di Cullenmore, 2nd - 4th Grade Dean of Coaching and Intervention, painting faces at Harvest Fest

Di Cullenmore with a student at Greek Night.

DCIs work closely with teachers throughout the school year through meetings and observations. DCIs hope to provide consistent feedback to teachers and help teachers use data to inform instructional decisions.Other ways DCIs support teachers at Bridge is through:

• Lesson planning and unit planning
• Grading and student work evaluation
• Developing assessments
• Workshopping directions and lesson plan instructions

BBCS is intentional about developing our staff to best suit the needs of our students. Our DCIs coach our teachers to ensure they are are always improving student’s learning outcomes.

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Team Favorites:

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