Spruce Street School

Spruce Street School is an incredibly special place filled with joy, intentionality, and learning! Our family felt welcomed from the moment we entered the building as tourists - (even by older students who would say "hi" as we passed by each other in the stairwell)- to knowing we were valued, important members of the community throughout our entire time there. Kindness is fostered daily, diversity is a priority, and ideas are respected. Their approach to academics and learning are incredibly thoughtful, routing back to an overarching theme and met with excitement in a variety of ways. The teachers are such fun, deeply invested individuals who are given the time and capacity to know each student in the building. Spruce Street empowers children with just the right amount of age appropriate autonomy, allowing them to grow into their wonderful selves along the way with care and kindness. From the marimba program and performances, physical education, celebrating reading, theatrical performances, all school parties, camps, field trips, mock trials, and so much more fun-in-learning - I wish, as many alumni families do, that they were a K-12 instead!

Having a long line of academics and teachers in our families sets the bar very high when it comes to our expectations around our kid's schooling. But Spruce Street School is a real gem, with outstanding educators (and all of them are fantastic) and amazing admins. The community is the best I have ever encountered in Seattle. They really meet your kids where they are and understand children well. Our kid who loves academics and learning was thriving there. They really allow all the kids to find their love of learning, their voice, and be who they are. Their intentional community and excellent teamwork help all kids to learn at their own pace while they prepare them well both academically and socially for middle school. I wholeheartedly recommend this school and wish we had another child so we could stay at Spruce a few years longer.

We are new to Spruce Street having tried another school for the first half of our child's kindergarten year. Spruce Street welcomed our child with such enthusiasm that he felt comfortable and secure from the first week. The teachers are masters of their craft. From the start, our child came home from school eager to tell us about all he learned which is something that never happened at his previous school. The school sends out clear and detailed communication which has helped us orientate to the school seamlessly. Every year each level performs a play together and the experience couldn't have been more positive for our child. He was so proud to be on stage with his new classmates. It was wonderful to see the whole classroom working towards a common goal. We love the mix of arts and academics at the spruce street and the emphasis on building a joyful community of learners. It was important to us that our child learn to love school and learning in the first five years and we are so grateful to have found a community that shares this goal!

Our kid is happy at Spruce Street -- she charges into the school each morning and complains about leaving in the afternoon -- so of course, we recommend the school. The overall impression we get as parents is of a highly-effective team; we suspect that quality staff plus retention contributes to this effect. As of this writing, the Head of School has been at Spruce Street for a couple of decades, some of her teachers even longer. This effectiveness was on display during COVID: the school created new processes rapidly, communicated clearly to students and parents (a single read of the weekly newsletter is sufficient to understand current policy), and pivoted rapidly as changing conditions required. After the initial few months of remote learning, the school returned to on-prem (starting in the summer of 2020) and has been essentially uninterrupted since then. In our experience in our respective professions, this kind of effective response to novel situations depends on skilled leadership, deep expertise, and a well-coordinated team. As another example, early in 1st grade, our daughter's teaching team raised concerns about her progress in reading and writing. Within a handful of weeks, we had an ADHD diagnosis, both parent and child coaching, and medication in place -- and her teaching team played a key role in adapting to our daughter's learning needs, communicating with the coaches, and communicating with us. We would have been happy to repeat 1st grade -- that's what we predicted would be necessary, from an academic perspective. However, our daughter's reading & writing has taken off, and she has been promoted to 2nd grade (plus some assigned reading practice this summer, as I write this review). The teachers' expertise, and their comfort level with neurodiversity, shine through. From a diversity perspective, we also appreciate Spruce Street School -- achieving diversity is difficult and doing it in downtown Seattle is even harder. Yet, as of this writing, Spruce Street ranks high in this regard in comparison with other independent schools. The music program stars an end-of-school marimba performance by all the levels, held in a nearby park, another of those happy community-building events. And the program also includes stage time, along with an evening spring performance, in which your child performs far better than you would predict and which is just plain fun, from a parent's perspective. We also appreciate community -- the school is so small that you can get to know a significant number of parents and kids, at least in your child's combined level (Spruce Street hosts three levels: Youngest Level (K-1), Mid-Level (2-3), and Oldest Level (4-5). Parents organize ad hoc playdates, typically at playgrounds around the city, throughout the year, giving us an excellent opportunity to share the trials and joys of parenting. We enroll our daughter in the Extended Day program (which starts on-site immediately after school ends) as well as the eight-week summer camp, mostly because she is so happy and enthusiastic about attending school, and we like sticking with a good thing.