Management Staff
Mike McPartlin
Headmaster eMail
As Headmaster, Mike is responsible for the day-to-day operations of Bridgedale Academy, including oversight of the school’s academic and athletic curricula, as well as the financial and business aspects operating the school.
Mike has been a practicing attorney for nearly thirty years, with experience in both litigation and transactional matters. For more than ten years he was General Counsel to the Illinois Police Association, concentrating his practice in administrative law and appellate work. Mike is also a hockey entrepreneur, having founded the TAC Hockey camps in the late 1980s. He has been a hockey coach for more than thirty-five years, including twenty years as a high school coach. From 2001 through 2013 Mike was with the Chicago Mission AAA Hockey Club, the top AAA youth hockey club in North America, an organization that Mike helped to found, and which he has served for the first twelve years since its founding as a coach, director, officer and legal counsel.
Mike is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. Mike also completed all the course requirements for a Masters of Environmental Engineering degree from Illinois Institute of Technology. He received his JD from Loyola University of Chicago.
Christina Di Pauli
Academic Development Coordinator
As Academic Development Coordinator, Christina oversees Bridgedale’s academics. She works with all Bridgedale student-athletes to keep them on track academically and also in terms of preparing them for the next step in their lives, both academically and athletically. She also serves as Chair of our English Department, overseeing our English curriculum for all grade levels, a range of subjects that includes Literature, Grammar and Mechanics, Vocabulary, Composition and Spelling, and also Logic and Rhetoric.
Christina has taught at the primary, middle school and high school levels and has been teaching virtually non-stop since 1988. She is trilingual (fluent in English, German and Italian) and has her State of Illinois Elementary Certification through grade 9, as well as State of Illinois Middle Level Endorsements in Social Studies and Foreign Languages. Chris has two sons now playing NCAA Division 1 college hockey on scholarship: Theo Di Pauli at Union College in New York; and Thomas Di Pauli at the University of Notre Dame. Thomas played with USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program (“NTDP”) for two years, while Theo played for the Chicago Steel in the United States Hockey League (“USHL”). Christina was thus able to observe first-hand both the NTDP and the USHL experiences, and so she understands the challenges that high-level student-athletes face in balancing their athletics with their academics.
Christina is a graduate of Illinois State University with a BA in Economics. She also has an MA in Teaching from National-Louis University.
Dr. Kenneth Calvert
(Advisory Capacity Only)
Headmaster of Hillsdale Academy since 2003, Ken has acquired a unique wealth of experience in school administration and operations. As advisor to Bridgedale Academy, Ken provides invaluable insights on all aspects of Bridgedale’s operations, not only academically because we use Hillsdale’s academic curriculum, but also administratively.
Ken has been Headmaster at Hillsdale Academy for the last ten years. Under his direction, Hillsdale has become one of the premier K-12 academies in the nation. And with Hillsdale’s outstanding record of success educating its students, its curriculum is now used by hundreds of schools nationwide.
Ken has a PhD in History from Miami University of Ohio. He has a Masters in Theology from Harvard University and an undergraduate degree in Sociology from Wheaton College.
