Typically, schools wrap up the year by recognizing standout athletes or academic powerhouses. But Seattle Public Schools goes a step beyond, setting aside one evening to honor students for a quality at least as impressive: Resilience.
In this city, despite pockets of stratospheric wealth, there are dozens of high school seniors who are helping to support their families, or raise their siblings, or navigate obstacles so daunting they sometimes fear speaking them out loud.
“Soon after the fire, I went back to school and pretended nothing happened. My first day back, I needed to relearn to live life as ‘perfect’ me,” wrote Elizabeth Palma Alvarado, a senior at Chief Sealth High, about a housing disaster that displaced her family and could have derailed her college goals. “I did not want to tell anyone because I did not want their pity or hear their voices get softer and ask for a hug.”
A teacher noticed anyway. “She said, ‘Be your true self, don’t let anyone take that from you.’ In that moment, I knew I needed to embrace my obstacles and not hide from them.”
Elizabeth, now headed to the University of Washington, was one of 72 students recognized last month with generous $10,000 scholarships from Seattle Public Schools for bravery, leadership and refusing defeat in the face of significant hardship. For a half-century, the Seattle Schools Scholarship has hailed students for demonstrating grit as much as genius. Its recipients are kids who’ve persevered through sibling deaths, incarcerated parents and uprooted homes on the road to higher education.
That’s not a small number. Since the fund began in 1974, it has disbursed an estimated $4.5 million to more than 3,000 students, all of it collected from private donors — some of them big names, many of them retired teachers. The stories sketched in the students’ essays reflect realities often unseen in this metropolis of millionaires.
“A life challenge I overcame was the foster care system. I was placed in multiple homes until I arrived at my aunt’s doorstep,” wrote Matthew, a senior at Ballard High School. “From that experience, I learned what a difficult lifestyle is like.”
Each student is nominated by a school counselor. And it was counselors, pointing out the breadth of need, who persuaded the scholarship board to broaden its giving from two scholarships per school (with no alternative programs) to awarding five students at every comprehensive high school and three each from Interagency, Nova, the Center School, Middle College and Alan T. Sugiyama High.
There is no application, per se, and no proof of financial need required. The minimum GPA to qualify is 2.0 — not as stringent as that for most scholarships — because this one is honoring achievement of a very different kind.
“As a child, I was happy and curious, but life forced me to grow up fast. My dad was in and out of jail, and my mom would disappear for weeks at a time. My grandfather became our guardian,” wrote a Franklin High School senior, now headed to a historically Black university in Atlanta.
“By seventh grade, I lost both my grandmother and grandfather. Their deaths, combined with the pandemic, sent me into a deep depression. Adjusting was difficult, but I kept pushing forward. Loss has shaped me, but it won’t define me.”
A city that has seen its own share of struggle could take a lesson from these kids.
