Do Your Homework Before You Go To School

In the December 2006 issue of Seattle Metropolitan Magazine, the cover story was “Seattle’s Best Schools, 591 Graded”.   Unfortunately, Seattle Metropolitan excluded an exceptional independent private school located in West Seattle, Explorer West, as well as other private schools, such as the Northwest School and University Child Development School.  I’m particularly disappointed in the magazine’s oversight as I am a proud parent of an EW student.

Here are a few of the reasons why I selected Explorer West for my son’s education.

• Explorer West, just celebrating their 10 year anniversary, educates grades 6-8 with a student to teacher ratio of 9:1.   
• PNAIS approved, Explorer West features the traditional academics, has a complete athletics program and an outdoor education program.
• EW is community focused by having students volunteer at parks and various schools.
• They offer a program where the 8^th Grade Class will be traveling to Rome with their Latin Teacher in the Spring.

I have really enjoyed the parent, student, teacher conferences as the student conducts the assessment of their performance to their teachers and parents.    The school is very focused on developing the students into future leaders and preparing them for high school and college.

Seattle Metropolitan plans on having their “Seattle’s Best Schools” list on the internet soon.  Hopefully they will update their data to include all private and public schools so parents can have a more complete tool for selecting a school for their child.