Founded in 1994, Puget Sound Community School (PSCS) is a small, private, middle and high school located in the Chinatown-International District of Seattle. PSCS is committed to centering intentionally excluded perspectives in curriculum and programming. With Critical Race Theory, intersectionality, and collaboration framing our approach, community-centered education also prioritizes the lived experience of our global majority students and staff, while offering young people opportunities to take increasing responsibility for your own education.
At PSCS, we believe that by fostering curiosity, offering opportunities for young people to lead (and opportunities to understand there are many forms of leadership), while continuously addressing systemic racism and misogyny, we will all be more empowered to move bravely through an uncertain world and toward our shared liberation.
Collaborative Scheduling & Advising
PSCS students meet weekly with their Advisors (usually members of the Teaching Staff) to set individual academic and community goals, and check in on progress. Then, before the start of each term, we come together and collaborate as a community to co-create the term's course schedule (see Schedule Mapping).
Once the schedule has been created, all students must meet each facilitator’s engagement expectations and at least 70% attendance in order to have them transcripted for Credit/No Credit, which are included in term in a narrative report that documents a students trajectory through middle and high school (these also include staff reflections and student Self Reflections).
This cooperative process provides the arena in which students learn to plan and advocate for classes they want or need, to structure their schedules around their interests, goals, and priorities, and to be sensitive to the scheduling needs of others. We think this process sends young people out into the world who are more able to prioritize, self- and community-advocate, and with heightened Executive Function skills.
Collaborative Leadership
In an effort to build upon the equitable vision of the school, PSCS parents, staff, and the Board of Trustees agreed in 2021 to invest in a more intentionally hierarchical administration and leadership, rather than in a traditional Head of School or ED. PSCS is run by a collaborative staff with a collective 100+ years of experience in student support, identity development, intersectional and creative facilitation, non-profit and private school administration, which is underscored by a commitment to Abolitionist Teaching rooted in Critical Race Theory and a more complete historical framework.
Students who fully embrace the program offered at PSCS show consistent progress in self-expression, leadership, and skill-building in almost any endeavor, and start to recognize they are part of something bigger than themselves.