A Celebration of Our history

presented by cofounder and staff member, Shawna Lee,
at the 2000 school warming celebration

I have long been interested in alternative education and first learned about the Sudbury model of schooling from a Mothering magazine article about Sudbury Valley School. I was instantly drawn to the Sudbury philosophy, and it made even more sense to me as I watched my son, Ian, grow and develop. When Ian was three I wrote Sudbury Valley to find out if a similar school existed in Seattle. The answer was “no”. However they directed me to a woman in Olympia who was trying to start a Sudbury school there. She gave me the name of Martha Hurwitz, a former staff member at Sudbury Valley who had recently moved to Seattle.

Around the same time, I discovered a classified ad in my latest Mothering magazine looking for people interested in starting a Sudbury-type school in Seattle. I contacted Martha and the phone number in the Mothering ad. Martha graciously answered my many questions about Sudbury education and what it would take to start a school. She also made it clear she did not have the time to be involved in starting a school. (Let the record show that, as a founder, Martha’s desire to stay away was never realized.) Martha gave me a short list of people whom she knew were interested in Sudbury education. A number of other people had responded to the Mothering ad and the family who placed the ad gave me that list because they had decided to move away from Seattle.

My husband, Bob, and I hosted an initial meeting during the spring of 1994, inviting everyone on the combined lists. Forty people attended. From that meeting a small group of us planned a series of meetings to define our vision for a Sudbury school and begin the work of founding it. We called ourselves the Seattle Democratic School Planning Committee and developed a basic brochure describing our goal of starting a Sudbury school. At each meeting, a few new people would attend who had heard about our efforts from friends or our minimal publicity.

For two years we talked, refined our goals, picked a name, worked on legal stuff and looked for sites. People came and went, but a core group remained. (Founders who continue as Assembly members or supporters are Martha Hurwitz, Elizabeth and Guy Peckham, Stephanie Sarantos Peter Shirley, Alex Kochis, Julia Henry, Bob Freeman and myself, Shawna Lee.) By the summer of 1996 we felt no closer to starting because we didn't have a place to house the school and the oldest child in the group was only 7. Families outside of the founders group were reluctant to commit to our ether school.

That summer Martha, Stephanie and I attended the Sudbury Valley School’s summer conference in Massachusetts for existing and startup Sudbury schools. During that conference, Stephanie told Martha and I she was considering opening her house two days a week for a playgroup that would be operated as much as possible within the Sudbury model. I was excited about the possibility of beginning to turn our dream into reality.

In the fall of 1996 we started the playgroup with nine children, including current students, Corey, Claire, Lucas and Ian. By January we had over 15 children. At one of our founders meetings during which we tried to come up with a name for the playgroup that would play off of the Clearwater name, Peter Shirley, a founder and Sudbury graduate, commented that it seemed to him that the playgroup was The Clearwater School and we should start thinking about it that way. This was our official realization that Seattle’s Sudbury school had begun.

In May 1997 we had our first Assembly meeting of founders, parents and students. There was enough interest to expand to three days a week and Stephanie and Tom invited the school to stay in their house for another year. Ultimately, the school occupied Stephanie and Tom’s house for three years. During that time we expanded to 25 students.

Our goal to become a full-time school could only be achieved by moving out of Stephanie’s house and standing on our own. Besides, we had outlived our welcome there. In August 1999, at the eleventh hour, we found a house near the zoo, which had been the home of the Bjorn Lih Primary School. Nora Lih, the owner, in a desire to help us out, generously agreed to accept a much lower rent than she had originally requested.

In January of this year (2000) Nora informed us that Kapka Primary School Coop had approached her about a long-term lease of the house for their school. As a primary school, their co-op was more in keeping with her vision for the property, so she agreed to lease to them when our lease ended in June. Kapka had done an extensive site search for their school and had a list of properties they researched. They gave us their list to help us in our homeless plight. One of the properties was this one. We are thrilled to be here in a beautiful facility with a wonderful landlord as we begin our fifth year, 32 students strong. I never set out to help found a school and at the beginning of the process had no clue how much the process would require of me. It is probably better I didn’t know, or I might never have begun it. My deepest gratitude goes to all of you who through the years have helped Clearwater get to this point. I look forward to many more years of growth and development and hope the school will continue to benefit from your support.