Seattle Girls' School Programs
Seattle Girls School (SGS) believes:
- Empowering a girl changes the world.
- It is fundamental to understand and address issues of difference and oppression.
- An integrated, collaborative curriculum challenges and engages students.
- Middle school should be joyful, curiosity-filled, and safe and open to all voices.
SGS contributes to a healthy community by working to ensure that young women, regardless of their family’s economic status, have an opportunity for a first-rate education.
Through our Need-Based Financial Aid Program, we strive to diminish barriers and provide equal access to all of Seattle’s daughters. Our Board has committed to providing a minimum of 30% of the student body with need-based financial aid because a family’s personal income should not be a barrier to a quality, dynamic and inspiring education. For the 12-13 school year, 39% of the student body was awarded need-based financial aid, with an average grant size of $13,512. In order to provide this level of financial aid we must raise over $500,000 annually. SGS has given over $5 million dollars in need-based financial aid to over 1/3 of the total student body in its 12 year history.
The SGS Anti-Bias Program works to build respect and understanding for the complexities of living in our world. We believe it is fundamental to understand and address issues of difference and oppression and our Anti-Bias Program ensures our active engagement in these issues. Our diverse community of students, faculty, staff, and families take a proactive stance systems of oppression and take pride in fostering an environment in which everyone is fully included and encouraged to contribute.
Through a variety of programs before, during, and after school, as well as its urban location drawing upon a diverse student population, girls will not only find ample outlets for their energy and creativity, but also opportunities to stretch themselves both academically and personally.
At SGS, girls will have their interests developed, their ideas tested, their hearts opened, their confidence ignited, and their idealism respected.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
SGS was recently awarded an $18,000 STEAM grant (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) from the Women's Funding Alliance. The grant is the first of it's kind for middle schools, and will support the development of a new, hands-on engineering curriculum designed to meet the learning needs of middle school girls. This program will help to provide the educational background and opportunities to pique girls' interest in this traditionally male dominated field.
Campus Campaign - The Campus Campaign is a $2 million, three-year initiative to build a space for school community gatherings, acquire a building lot that would be repurposed for outdoor activities, and replace the three dilapidated storefronts on South Jackson Street with a new school building. It is our hope to develop a 21st Century campus that is linked to our community and to our world, which will be a laboratory of learning for SGS Students.
Campus Campaign funds will enable SGS to provide the equipment required to fully support our innovative teachers and fully empower our students, allowing them to meet today's educational demands while being equipped to work with those they will encounter tomorrow. Not only will the new campus result in a positive impact on our student programs, but also on our enrollment and the greater community.