History of SSIA

What this partnership means for The Center School...

Two years ago a group of principals, parents, and community members from Queen Anne and Magnolia began meeting to discuss how we could provide broad and enriching educational experiences for our students in the face of continuing budget cuts. Although the group originally focused on how to increase funding, we soon came to realize that by leveraging the unique strengths of each school and working in concert with the community, we could expand on and create new opportunities with existing resources. Last fall the group was awarded a Department of Neighborhoods Matching Grant - and Successful Schools in Action, or SSIA, was born.

SSIA is comprised of all seven public schools in Queen Anne and Magnolia, including Lawton, Blaine, Hay, Coe, McClure and the Secondary Bilingual Orientation Center (SBOC), located in the old Hay building, as well as The Center School. The principals, staff and community members from each school are active participants.

SSIA's mission is twofold. The first aim is to create a successful collaboration among these schools. One big advantage of this is to help facilitate a more streamlined and efficient process for communicating and sharing among the various institutions.

SSIA provides a link between the schools whereby principals and other individuals regularly meet to share ideas, problem-solve, and discuss issues common to everyone. Based on these conversations SSIA assesses needs, helping schools leverage resources and implement shared programs.

The music-sharing program is one example. The principals from McClure, Blaine Middle School, and the SBOC discovered that all were in need of a music program yet individually no school could afford it. By combining resources these three schools together were able to hire a full-time music teacher. As a result, middle school students from Blaine and McClure are now receiving instrumental music instruction and playing in a band together, while for the first time in its 24-year history the SBOC has a music program.

Future shared programs may include arts enrichment, technology, or world languages. We are also interested in implementing a cross-school tutoring and mentoring program, creating opportunities for older students to pair up with younger students, and welcoming volunteers from the community.

As for the second part of our mission, the intention is to foster strong relationships between the schools and the community. Based on our belief that there is mutual benefit when schools are strong and integral parts of communities, we are working to create partnerships with the many different segments of our neighborhoods.
We plan to become more actively involved in the Queen Anne and Magnolia communities by participating in events, helping with neighborhood projects, and providing opportunities for students to interact with individuals and groups and learn more about their neighborhoods.

At the same time, we will create opportunities for all Queen Anne and Magnolia residents to become involved with the schools through participation in school events, classroom projects, or working with individual students. In the future we would like to offer our schools as venues where we provide community and family classes and host events.

So what does all this mean for The Center School specifically? As our only participating high school, The Center School has unique needs and different resources than some of the other schools that SSIA supports. We would like to work actively with everyone at TCS to find ways to support the staff and parent community. This may take the form of helping to secure and administer teacher initiated grants, creating cross-school collaborative fund raising events, helping to arrange community service and internship opportunities for students, providing opportunities to expand existing programs or provide new ones, or looking for creative ways to help secure or provide for resources or items in the current school budget that may be in danger of losing their funding. As we receive more information from the surveys that have been sent out, we will be able to plan for specific programs and community opportunities that will best meet the needs of TCS.

Our goal is to help support and strengthen schools according to their needs. Our agenda is dictated by the schools and is based on survey feedback, school Transformation plans, and principal input. Please don't hesitate to contact Lisa Moore, Executive Director: 378-0797 or lisamoore@schoolsinaction.org if you have any questions about SSIA or suggestions, or would like to hear about opportunities to get involved. Please visit our website as well at: www.schoolsinaction.org.