Features

At Evergreen Elementary School in Shelton, most students grow up in high-poverty environments. Many are English language learners who are the children of immigrants from Latin America.

In the face of adversity, however, Principal Adina Brito (MIT '96) is helping create a culture where all students believe they can succeed, for which she recently was honored as a member of the 2017 Class of National Distinguished Principals.

In the coming year, Kristin Percy Calaff will be hiring up to 20 teachers who can speak Spanish or Vietnamese to staff the growing number of dual language classrooms in Highline Public Schools.

That is, if she can find them.

Noah Zeichner (MIT '04) and Diana Hess (PhD '98) are being honored by the National Council for the Social Studies during its annual conference this November.

Zeichner, who teaches at Ingraham International High School in Seattle will receive the 2017 Award for Global Understanding while Hess, dean of University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, will receive the 2017 Jean Dresden Grambs Distinguished Career Research in Social Studies Award.

At Prime Time Extended Learning Center in Tacoma, Gemma Stephani recalls welcoming a student who had been expelled from a private elementary school due to behavioral issues.

The student began attending Prime Time after enrolling in a public elementary school, and as the staff grew to know him better, Stephani witnessed a transformation as the child learned to verbalize his feelings more effectively.