Garden City High School students connect through language and vocational skills in first Collaborative Community Friday
Ms. Bridget Kelly's students completed their first Collaborative Community Friday event by pairing up with Mrs. Alyssa Acierno’s Spanish class for an engaging, hands-on learning experience.
Ms. Kelly developed this initiative to create not only enriching learning experiences but also unique social opportunities for all students involved. The process begins with Ms. Kelly reaching out to general education teachers across different subjects to select a date. She then tailors a modified lesson that aligns with both their curriculum and her students’ needs, ensuring hands-on engagement in the chosen subject area.
For the collaboration between Ms. Kelly and Mrs. Acierno’s classes, students worked in small groups to explore mock job postings that Ms. Kelly designed based on her students’ vocational interests. These mock job postings, such as a library assistant, babysitter and postal worker, included the job duties, candidate qualifications and salary. This activity aligned perfectly with Mrs. Acierno’s curriculum, as her students had just begun a vocabulary unit on community and the workplace—a seamless connection to Ms. Kelly's program, where students spend part of their day gaining hands-on job experience.
Through this lesson, Ms. Kelly's vocational students practiced recalling personal information and strengthening their reading and writing skills, while Mrs. Acierno’s students completed the same job applications entirely in Spanish, applying their newly learned workplace vocabulary. Beyond reinforcing essential academic and vocational skills, this collaboration fostered meaningful social connections between students, bridging different learning communities in a supportive, interactive environment.
“I am incredibly proud of how this first collaboration unfolded and am excited to see the impact of future sessions,” Ms. Kelly said. “Opportunities like this are invaluable—not just for my students, but for their peers as well. It’s a powerful way to encourage collaboration and build lasting connections, even if it’s just through a friendly hello in the hallway.”
Collaborative Community Fridays will occur once per month in various classrooms, ensuring that Ms. Kelly's students, alongside their peers, have frequent opportunities to participate in meaningful, interdisciplinary activities. Later this month, Ms. Kelly's students will join Mr. Charles Hager’s science class to work on a DNA lab.