The Bridge Program is the result of a chance encounter between a high school teacher and a former student. While standing in a home improvement store, the teacher, noticing the medical shirt the former student was wearing, asked him if he had gone into that profession. The student said that he had wanted to, but when he traveled to the local community college during the summer after his senior year he had found himself facing long lines and a system he did not understand. So instead of getting out of his truck, he went back to work and decided to try another day. Of course the former student never returned. The high school teacher, with twenty-seven years of experience working full time with seniors and twenty years working as an adjunct faculty member at his local community college, realized that he had heard an endless stream of such stories.
These stories from former high school and current college students have centered on the problems faced with transitioning from the highly controlled environment of secondary education to the more self-controlled and self-directed life of college. The goal of the Bridge Program then is to create a quality program that uses the latest technology for the preparation and transition of students into a post-secondary educational world. The program began with a focus on only seniors but soon the teachers, instructors, counselors and administrators that had joined this caused realized that if we were truly going to change the behavior of our students when it comes to their future we had to start at a much younger age. Today, working with elementary and middle school teachers, counselors, administrators and EUREKA, the program is getting ready to launch a 4th-12th program that will take students through a seamless process of discovery, exploration and transition to a post-secondary institution.
The Lewis Center for Educational Research, a non-profit institution dedicated to helping students is the home of the K-16 Bridge Program. This program is the result of a special partnership between The Lewis Center, The Snowline School District and Victor Valley College. These are three educational institutions that are willing to commit time, money and services in order for all students to have the opportunity to be successful.