Welcome to The Downtown School!
Students at The Downtown School apply their learning to real-world situations, asking, “Why does this matter?” and “How can I use this?” In Chemistry, this means they analyze Gatorade in our state-of-the-art lab to see how chemical bonding, conductivity, and intermolecular forces combine. In English, they use the tools for poetry analysis to identify bias in media. In Physics, students test the aerodynamics of skydiving through iFly Indoor Skydiving. In History, students embody political leaders in a re-enactment of the 1968 Democratic Convention. And in our three-week-long intensive classes, students collaborate with local experts and engage with the city as a laboratory for learning to discover first-hand applications of topics such as ethics, citizenship, health, wellness, digital media, and how best to learn.
At The Downtown School, students shape their educational experience. Our Associated Student Body meets weekly to design, plan, and implement activities for the community. Students lead over 30 clubs ranging from the DTS Ensemble orchestra, to the Downtown Players drama club, to Model UN, to Debate, to Dungeons & Dragons, to Sunrise Environmental Club. Students have published our yearbooks, and they have mounted dozens of live orchestra and theater productions. Teachers also incorporate student voice into the curriculum, encouraging students to connect their personal interests to their learning by writing about topics of interest to them (English), coding personal projects in Python (Math), or using design thinking to develop original inventions for creation and investments (Entrepreneurship).
Our curriculum connects with the city in many ways, starting right in our backyard: the culture, vibrant green spaces, and sports in the Seattle Center. Students have pitched original production designs to the artistic direction of the Seattle Opera; they have honed their acting skills in workshops led by Seattle Repertory Theatre and Book It! Theatre artists; they have ridden the Seattle Great Wheel to collect data for circle analysis; they have learned parkour with Kong Academy instructors; and they have brought the school community together with field days at Myrtle Edwards Park. Students have also learned from dozens of area experts who have visited our campus to share their expertise with the community. Just last year students partnered with over 30 local businesses, non-profits, and professionals in over 90 individual city experiences both on and off campus, amounting to a total of 2,500 individual student experiences with local connections.
In addition to being dedicated educators, our teachers bring rich experiences to The Downtown School. Together, our teachers have over 100 years of experience in over 35 different schools around the world. They have won a combined six teaching-related awards, they have held over 10 different leadership positions at schools in the US and abroad, and they have delivered dozens of presentations at national and international conferences. As lifelong learners, our teachers participated in 48 different seminars, trainings, or professional development related to their craft just in 2022, and they have written and published 17 books, six academic articles in peer-reviewed journals, and even a PBS documentary on school reform. Our teachers are singers, athletes, gardeners, volunteers, writers, poets, karate artists, actors, sailors, swimmers, crafters, artists, photographers, and musicians. But above all, our teachers are dedicated to inspiring young people and modeling passion, curiosity, and wonder.
