Bridge Program gets designation as high school in San Mateo Union High School District

“It’s an absolute blessing,” Superintendent Randall Booker said. “Having Bridge be our 10th school in the district says something about how this board and how this community, how this district values our multilingual learners and more specifically our newcomer students.” 

The Bridge Program started seven years ago serving around 20 students, and now has grown to about 80 students in five classrooms. Bridge Principal Samia Shoman said 26 of their students will be graduating through Peninsula High School in the coming weeks. 

Next year’s class will get their diploma from the independent alternative school. 

“We’ve transitioned from a small program without the potential of graduating students to becoming a school that is graduating students who never imagined they could earn a high school diploma here,” Shoman said.

The alternative schooling program was founded upon a Mayan concept of “In Lak’ech” and “tú eres mi otro yo,” which means, “you are my other me,” embodying the idea that we are a reflection of one another. A focus on empathy, Shoman said, has allowed the program to become a strong academic institution serving multilingual students who often maintain a lot of responsibilities outside of school. 

“There’s this fear in practicing English for fear of making mistakes,” Shoman said. “When you create that safe environment, there is more opportunity and willingness to take those academic risks.” 

Trustee Jennifer Jacobsen said she is constantly amazed by the abundantly clear focus on empathy when she visits the Bridge satellite campus. She said “the level of service that is rendered, it’s like a private school.”

“It’s just a level of intimacy and compassion that goes beyond anything I’ve ever seen in a school before,” Jacobson said. “It’s really, really special and the outcomes are amazing because of it.” 

Shoman said this wouldn’t be possible without staff at Bridge who deeply understand the “need to educate the whole child.” 

“That isn’t done by happenstance,” Booker said. “That is done through a protectiveness that Dr. Shoman and her colleagues and fellow Bridge educators have around those students and that program. There is a fierceness around that protectiveness.”

Shoman, who is also the manager of academic support programs for the district, said Bridge was created out of a desire to reach everyone in the community, regardless of status or educational experience. As a part of one of the counties in the state that has the highest population of newcomers, she said this school does its job at serving the community.

“It’s exciting to see that actually, we are still in an educational world where you can dream and meet students where they are at and provide them what they need,” Shoman said.