The Seattle School for Boys has started its inaugural school
year with a curriculum focused on real-world problem solving and social and
behavioral growth.
Founding teacher Jerome Hunter has lived in Seattle the past
14 years, teaching middle school for seven of those, first in Federal Way, and
then at McClure Middle School in Queen Anne.
He said he was tired of the misconceptions about boys with
too much energy being deemed as disruptive or uninterested in learning, and a
lack of positive engagement to help them meet their potential.
Hunter worked with Drew Markham, a corporate attorney who
has served on multiple nonprofit boards, including the Seattle Girls’ School,
to create the curriculum and establish the Seattle School for Boys. They
brought on Nick Creach as the nonprofit’s first head of school.
There are just 10 students enrolled for the first year of
the Seattle School for Boys, which includes sixth- and seventh-graders, with
eighth grade to be added in 2020-21.
“The general thought is to start small and work toward
growth,” said Creach, who previously served as Seattle Academy’s head of middle
school.
A University of Washington graduate, Creach got his start in
educational instruction at Cardigan Mountain School, a New Hampshire boarding
and day school for boys in grades 6-9.
“When we came back out, I was shocked to see there wasn’t an
all-boys, nonreligious school,” he said.
Prior to his work at Seattle Academy, Creach was dean of
student life and middle school athletics at University Prep, a co-education
private school in Wedgwood.
He said the Seattle School for Boys will challenge attitudes
about what it means to be a man, encouraging students to embrace their
sensitivity and find better ways to express themselves.
“Behavior is a skill set,” Creach said, “and we need to
teach that.”
The Seattle School for Boys is operating out of the basement
level of the Ebenezer AME Zion Church, and Creach said he’s looking at what
space the school could grow into as time goes on. The school has five tiers of
tuition based on financial review, and can be as high as $10,000 a year or as
low as less than $2,500.
“We’re going to need funding and we’re going to ask for
donations and we’re going to apply for grants,” Creach said of sustaining and
growing the new independent school.
Accreditations come from the National Association of
Independent Schools, Northwest Association of Independent Schools, the state
board of education and its AdvanceED program.
Hunter said the “Challenge Cycle” learning model will involve
students circulating through stations as they work with teachers through
exercises that involve addressing real-world problems, gathering research to
support a thesis or claim, and eventually taking action. There will still be
core curriculum, such as math, science and humanities, Creach said.
“We are going to build fundamental skills,” he said, “and at
the end of the day there will be some kind of call to action.”
Seattle School for Boys is partnering with a local
construction company to teach students how to design and build a tiny house in
September, which will then be donated to a local nonprofit.
Each year will have a different theme, and the first for the
Seattle School for Boys will be around healthy communication and social
development, Hunter said, and that includes students regularly meeting in
circles to share their interests and feelings.
“A lot of what we’re going to do, to be honest with you, is
[conversational] code-switching,” Creach said.
Hunter said staff is working on a health and wellness
collaboration with the Seattle Girls’ School, addressing everything from
puberty to getting enough sleep. It will also provide an educational
opportunity to learn about how to interact with the opposite gender and address
topics, such as consent. The health and wellness series should last about six
weeks, he said.
“As a cisgender female I’m going into an all-boys space, and
I don’t know how the boys there will identify, but I will be a female in that
space,” said Hannah McHugh, SGS adventure and wellness teacher.
McHugh has spent 10 years in an all-girls environment, and
said she’s excited for the opportunity to work with students at the Seattle
School for Boys addressing puberty, relationships and boundary setting.
“I’m excited to be able to bring what I have learned from
the girls and with the girls over the past 10 years to the boys and learn from
the boys and what they bring and take that back over to the girls’ side,” she
said.
McHugh said it’s great that the new school is thinking about
ways to provide boys with social and emotional tools to help them be future
world leaders, much the same way SGS has done for girls.
The Seattle School for Boys will also have partnerships with
the Meredith Mathews East Madison Branch YMCA down the street, the Coyote
Central youth arts organization and Kong Academy.
More information is available at seattleschoolforboys.org.