Features

Ilene Schwartz, the director of the University of Washington’s Haring Center for Inclusive Education, has been awarded the 2018 Mary McEvoy Service to the Field Award by the Council for Exceptional Children Division for Early Childhood (DEC).

The award, given to a DEC member who has made significant national or international contributions to the field of early childhood special education, will be presented to Schwartz during the organization’s annual meeting in October.

Since its creation in 2013, the Seattle Teacher Residency (STR) has been in the vanguard of efforts to reimagine teacher preparation in the United States and create novel pathways into the profession.

A runaway, metal rod clinks onto the brown linoleum floor as 10th graders build robots for an upcoming inter-class competition. “Start thinking: How high are you going to build the next one?” their teacher encourages.

In a nearby building, middle-schoolers crowd around their instructor as he holds a yellow dodgeball and helps them estimate the height of the floors in the building. Just down the hall, older mathematicians try to create their own theories under the watch of a school district math coach.

In a phenomena known as “summer melt,” many high school graduates plan to pursue higher education, but something derails them over the summer.

“They get confused, they don’t know how to fill something out, and then they don’t show up to their first day, and don’t show up for the rest of the year,” Natalia Esquivel - Silva (BA '18) explained.

It’s a chain of events that throws off the plans of many young people, with lifelong consequences.