Our Mission
Bridges|MS915 is a learning community dedicated to honoring the potential of each of our middle school students. Maintaining and supporting diversity and equity is central to our mission. We are committed to embracing our diversity in our pedagogical practices, and to making our school a safe, engaging, and equitable space for our children and families.
We seek to support student agency, exploratory learning, creativity, academic and civic engagement, the pursuit of justice, and social progress. We are committed to the intellectual, artistic, moral, emotional, social and physical development of each student, and we value each other as thoughtful co-creators of a vibrant, interdependent community.
Our students will graduate with a deeper understanding of the world and a sense of their own power to make positive change personally, in their communities, and beyond.
Our Vision
It is our vision that students will graduate Bridges having:
- Engaged in high-level academic pursuits and grown as thinkers through exploration, reflection, innovation and thoughtful risk-taking
- Learned to work effectively, both individually and in groups, and to recognize how different interests, strengths, backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can enhance decision-making
- Developed a strong sense of self within a diverse world, centered on truth, responsibility, and justice
- Challenged themselves to reflect deeply on what it means to act ethically and take responsibility, in pursuit of the betterment of their communities and the world beyond
- Enjoyed opportunities to explore their own interests and to grow as artists and athletes
Our History
Formerly MS 8, Bridges|MS 915 officially opened in 2019 at the Westinghouse High School campus, on Johnson Street in Downtown Brooklyn.
In 2012, The Robert Fulton School PS 8, in Brooklyn Heights, expanded to become a K-8 school, and with that a middle school with grades 6-8 was created and called MS 8. In 2018, the School Leadership Team of the PS/MS 8 community successfully worked with the Department of Education to split the two schools so that each could have its own focus, funding, mission, and vision.
In 2019, Bridges|MS 915 was proudly established through the hard work, dedication and collaboration of teachers, administrators, families, community members, and the Department of Education as a school devoted to the education and development of youth and young teenagers. In 2021, after a multi-year process involving discussions among staff, students and families, as well as approval from the District 13 Community Education Council and the Department of Education, MS 915 officially took on its new name: Bridges: A School for Exploration + Equity.