Hello there,

Thanks for checking out Puget Sound Community School!

At PSCS we begin with Critical Race Theory as the foundation of our approach to teaching and learning. Our staff strive to frame all curriculum and programs in CRT and Abolitionist Teaching, as defined by Dr. Bettina Love, “teaching with the goal of intersectional social justice for equitable classrooms that love and affirm Black and brown children.” 

At this point, anyone in the world may claim their understanding of Dr. Love’s definition. Every one of us is adapting to a fast moving, post-pandemic reality that more fully destroyed the thin facade of equity in this country. Young people have more access than ever before to global insights, un-selfconscious verbiage, and both checked and unchecked data. PSCS staff do not pretend to have all the answers for reaching true equity and harnessing the power of such access. But we do commit to collaborating on behalf of all students, and to trusting deeply in the experience and expertise of the people in the building who are most qualified to frame our goals around what we know and understand of the students and staff in this community.

Academically, PSCS prioritizes offering students opportunities and guidance, responsibility and feedback. Opportunities arise as courses, activities, Schedule Mapping, conflict resolution, Seminars, Community Time, Advising, leadership, Intensives and Independent Study. Guidance from staff and Advisors is meant to help hold you accountable to your choices and to assume we can all do hard things. Guidance and accountability are not one size fits all. They are collaboratively tailored to individual student needs, and the needs of the community, as we grow to understand them in our space.

In most schools, academic rigor is determined by the pace each student sets over time, in competition with their peers, often based on heavily biased standards. Because we intentionally work to explore bias, and to consider jobs and paths that haven’t even been imagined yet, traditional STEM academics are only part of the PSCS student experience.

We are committed to challenging each other and our students to be collaborative and expansive in our pursuit of deeper learning, intersectional social justice, and ending systemic racial violence. 

Students at PSCS

PSCS is intentionally small and relational. While most of us are not actually related, we are a type of family or team. Each one of us has a purpose in the community and each one of us hasn’t discovered all of the us that we can be.

The PSCS experience for everyone depends on how we choose to engage. Opportunities for participation, projects, and leadership are consistently offered. Staff offer individualized, distinct, responsive classes that take into account the needs and interests of each of our students. To do this, we have intentionally built a school that attracts educators who love teaching and who are supported in growth and collaboration.

While we don’t quantify or letterize success, students who are most successful at PSCS are often genuinely interested in the process as much as the result. Students who are creative, and work together to support the daily life and education of each student, at their own level. This collaboration is possible in a real life work environment and it’s playing out for students every day. The various styles of leadership and collaboration are modeled every day here, and students are paying attention.

Staff Collaboration

While Collaborative Leadership may not be as easily recognizable as the more traditional hierarchical system most of us are used to, PSCS staff are truly working together to engage students in our current community and to sustain us into the future—you deserve a school invested in helping you discover all you are capable of now, and our alumni deserve to have a community to come home to.

We connect each other to resources, propose plans and initiatives, co-plan agendae, rotate facilitation, bring in consultants, and update each other on what’s needed to meet your needs and address family challenges. We regularly share approaches and perspectives to know each person in the building. We see this diversity of perspective as a gift, as it more closely resembles the real world jobs and communities students will engage in after high school.

PSCS staff meet every moment as it comes while anticipating outcomes based on years of combined experience and expertise. This may not always work for a particular student at a particular moment. This is ok. 

Staff engage in regular, expansive, and intersectional professional development. In addition to offering an incredible array of classes and activities every term, each PSCS staff member is reading, listening, writing, talking, seeking counsel, taking courses, and connecting with outside resources, while also building and sharing access with our Community Partners. We rely on feedback, relationship, experience, and close-consensus to decide on any social, emotional, or academic process on behalf of a student or the community.

Collaborative Leadership is both slower and more urgent at the same time. The process of educating young people is also both slow and urgent. Sometimes these ideas are so at odds it’s difficult to see them as the what they really are: an opportunity for systemic change.

We can't wait to meet you!

PSCS Admin Team________________

Valerie Diaz Leroy  |  Director of Program  |  3 years

Sieglinde Levery-Nicholas  |  Director of Community Engagement & Admissions  | 13 years

Tim Ichien |  Director of Operations & Registrar  | 6 years

Defining Terms for Collaboration

Consensus: Reaching consensus is a coming to a collaborative decision ensuring the participation and representation of those most accountable to impact and outcomes.

The process of coming to consensus includes:

  • introduction and clarity of an issue
  • engagement in explicit conversation and deliberation

The goals of consensus are:

  • move forward having heard varied and differing perspectives
  • walk away with decisions knowing next steps and your role and responsibilities

Collaboration: Collaboration is a practice of communicating honestly and respectfully to contribute, hear, and clarify information, in order to move forward toward consensus and shared understanding.

The goals of practicing collaboration are to:

  • explore the unknown and dig deeper prior to discussion,
  • name dynamics and check biases
  • make decisions that honor lived experience and prioritize marginalized perspective 
  • listen actively so you can take action together
  • consider feedback, be accountable to impact, as well as to each other and the community

Leadership: Leadership is leveraging individual and group privilege and experience, in order to advocate for the community, particularly underrepresented voices, while consistently holding ourselves and each other accountable to impact.

The goals of leadership are to:

  • lead with empathy and listen for opportunities to provide support 
  • consistently seek more opportunities for learning and growth
  • remain transparent, honest, respectful, and accountable
  • maintain consistent reinforcement of collective community benefit
  • develop and maintain healthy boundaries and scaffold bridges

Congrats! You made it all the way! If you have further questions, please call 206-324-4350 or email the Admissions Office.