Sara's Success Story

If you have been following along on our blog for a while, you'll know how much I love sharing Bridgeway success stories.  A young woman named Sara stopped into our offices the other day to say hello and let us know what she's been up to since she left our school a few years ago.  I couldn't resist doing an impromptu interview so that I could share her story with you.

Congratulations on your success Sara!

Rhonda

Sara’s story

“Yes, I have a learning disability, but I can still learn and you can still teach me stuff.  I’m not stupid.  That’s what I learned from Bridgeway.”

Sara is having a big week.  She has just started her first year of university at Acadia, and like thousands of other students, she’s busy finding her way around campus, meeting new people and attending her first classes.

But there was a time that Sara didn’t believe she’d ever get here.

Sara has a learning disability.  At public school, her classmates called her stupid, and her teachers didn’t understand why she couldn’t do the work she was being given, since they could see she was bright.

She laboured for hours over homework, starting on it after school and continuing well into the evening.  Her parents would make her go to bed, sometimes close to midnight, and often before she was done.  When she returned to school with her homework unfinished, her teachers would put her in detention. 

The cycle started to take a toll on Sara.  She started getting sick, and didn’t want to go to school any more.  She would even fake sick for the chance to stay home.  Her mom realized that something was very wrong and started looking for answers.  She soon found Bridgeway, and registered Sara for two days a week (she’d attend her public school the other three) during her grade three year.  She went back to public school full-time the following year, but things didn’t go well, and she was back at Bridgeway as a full-time student by Grade 7.

Sara said the experience at Bridgeway was completely different for her.  The teachers worked with her in small classes, with lots of one-on-one attention.  They only gave her work she could handle, so homework was no longer a marathon of frustration.  Sara says she felt at home with students who were all the same.  Because everyone had a learning disability, she was no longer teased for not understanding.

Sara stayed at Bridgeway through Grade nine, and then switched to Churchill Academy, another provincially-designated school for students with learning disabilities in Dartmouth.  Even as she worked on her high school credits, she was still concerned about her ability to graduate.  She stayed in high school an extra year because she was afraid she wouldn’t be good enough to succeed.

Sara tried a college program soon after graduation, but because she didn’t have an updated psycho-educational assessment, she wasn’t able to receive the supports and accommodations she needed to succeed.  She wasn’t successful, and left the college before finishing her diploma.

But the dream of working with kids has stayed strong.  She had a rough childhood, and believes she can reach out to troubled kids to show them they can succeed.  She has always been curious, and asked those who were working in jobs that she’d like to have what kind of education they had.  Psychology was often the answer, so she’s now working with Acadia to get an updated assessment, and putting the supports she needs in place to get her psychology degree.  She’s confident that this time, she will succeed.