Local high school students perform at Tanglewood Institute

Sandy Bridges has the front office to herself now.

Last spring, the new P.S. 234 principal shared the spacious office with Anna Switzer, the beloved principal who left the school in June to head City Hall Academy. Bridges sat at a small side desk during her four-month stint as an assistant principal, but she has since moved to a center desk fit for a C.E.O.

That doesn’t mean Switzer is far away, though. City Hall Academy, a learning center for students throughout the city, lies just east of P.S. 234 at the Tweed Courthouse on Chambers St. And the two women talk every day.

“Anna and I have a wonderful, wonderful relationship,” Bridges said. “I like calling her.”

Bridges faces several challenges as she prepares her Tribeca elementary school for the start of classes on Sept. 8. The mayor’s public school overhaul has changed the entire chain of command in the city’s educational administration, leaving individual schools, principals and parents to relearn whom to contact with questions or feedback. On a more local level, P.S. 234 must deal with overcrowding this year. As of Friday, 710 students were enrolled at school, which has a capacity of 585.

But Bridges feels confident she can handle these and other potential problems.

“I’ll panic when I have a tangible reason,” she said with a laugh.

A hip 35, Bridges looks nothing like the matronly schoolmarm that many conjure up when they think “principal.” Wearing flip-flops and her long, Breck-ad blond hair loose, Bridges looked like the student teacher she once was at P.S. 234.

“She was really open to the kids,” said Larry Tell, whose daughter had Bridges in fourth and fifth grades several years ago. “She in a way was able to both be an educator and a pal at the same time, which took a lot of creativity and energy on her part.”

Bridges will enjoy at least one constant in the P.S. 234 curriculum. The school, consistently ranked among the city’s best, was granted a two-year waiver from adopting the mayor’s uniform math and literacy lessons.

One new element this year will be an increased focus on math instruction, Bridges said. Schools citywide will have an extra 50-minute class each Tuesday, and Bridges said that she plans to use the time largely for math.

As for the overcrowding, Bridges said that the school would just scrape by this year using every inch of spare space.

Bridges said she opposes a parent-led idea to build an addition onto the school, which was floated in early summer.

Bridges said she knows the names of most students at the school, but this personal touch will become lost if the enrollment balloons any further.

Bridges said that the school’s proven track record will undoubtedly help her.

“People generally pull together in this community to make it work out,” Bridges said.