LWGMS news

7th grade goes to Ashland!

2008-10-06T10:48:00.001-07:00

The Class of 2010 visited the Oregon Shakespeare Festival during the week of September 29. They saw five plays: A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Comedy of Errors, The Clay Cart, A View from the Bridge, and Othello. They also took a backstage tour of all the OSF theaters and participated in several classes and prologues, including a stage combat workshop and a performance class. The girls stayed in dorms at Southern Oregon University and enjoyed campus life and the town of Ashland.

Seattle City Councilmember Tim Burgess visits LWGMS and lives to blog about it

2008-09-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

His 9.17.08 blog, City View, had this to say:

Hope: Morning, Noon and Night

I had a great day today!

The day started at Lake Washington Girls Middle School near 18th and East Cherry Street where I had a discussion with a class of 8th graders about public corruption, ethics in government, character, and American campaign tactics. Wow! Those girls were impressive. Their questions were focused and cut right to the heart of the issues. They invited me as an elected officials after reading Robert Penn Warren's All The King's Men, a novel loosely based on Gov. Huey Long of Louisiana.

The girls were from across Seattle. Engaging with them was a measure of hope—they were bright, very aware of contemporary issues and problems, and well read. The last question of our hour together was right off the front page of the morning newspaper: "What do you think of the government taking over AIG?" I admitted I didn't know enough to answer.

Read the entire blog entry here:
http://timothyburgess.typepad.com/tim_burgess_city_view_/2008/09/hope-morning-no.html

LWGMS Partnership with Science and Math Institute

2008-09-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

As the introduction to our year-long partnership, Dr. Karla Fuller, Program Manager for the Science and Math Institute at Bellevue Community College, spoke to the whole school about the importance of science and math in all our lives. She has spearheaded a program called Science to Go through which science, math, and technology professors from BCC will visit school to talk about their fields and conduct a class or experiment with the students. The purpose of the program is to inform and excite girls about the many professions that involve science and math. The hope is that girls will pursue these fields in high school, college, and beyond and explore science, math, and technology-related professions. LWGMS is honored to be the pilot school for this program. The students will benefit from one to two visits each month from different professors who will conduct a class related to the curriculum.

Dr. Fuller shared her educational and professional experiences that led to Ph.D. and job as a Cancer Biologist. She then led the girls through an exercise in the scientific method.
* The students came up with the problem"How can scientists come up with a cure for the common cold?"
* They brainstormed ideas and observations.
* They formed hypotheses.
* They discussed how scientists would conduct experiments to work toward developing a preventative or cure for the cold.
* They revised their hypothesis and experiment.
* They did verbal research and collected data.
* They analyzed their data.
* They drew conclusions. In the end, they decided that the common cold was a necessary evil to foster strong immune systems.

We look forward to a visit from BCC chemistry and math professors on October 13th.

LWGMS featured in the P-I!

2008-06-17T18:04:00.000-07:00

View the full article and the online slideshow at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

June 17, 2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer article by Cecilia Goodnow

Article below:

Meryl Schenker / P-I

On June 11, the last day of school for the sixth and seventh-graders, they were asked to dance down the hallway in their own personal style as a way to symbolize passing from one grade to the next. Sixth-grade student Erin Proctor makes her passage into seventh grade.

All-girl middle school nurtures sisterhood when it really counts

Middle school is often a walk in the wilderness -- a time of shifting allegiances, unsettling body changes, intellectual leaps and uncertain self-image. Who am I? Who will I become?

Having scaled the summit of eighth grade, Pliny Stevens can look back and see the distance she has traveled since her first, jittery days at Lake Washington Girls Middle School.

As a raw, sixth-grade recruit, she worried that the academics would be too hard, that she'd have only one friend, that other girls would scrutinize her every move, that they'd form a secret "we hate Pliny" group.

"I didn't have much confidence in who I was," she said, "or who I wanted to be."

But sisterhood can be powerful. Instead of cliques and mean girls, Pliny found a nurturing community of spirited girls who had one another's back.

"As time went on," Pliny said in a graduation-night speech last week, "I found out that the people in our class would always accept me for being me."

Keeping girls strong and self-confident -- that was the dream 10 years ago when six families created Lake Washington Girls Middle School, the state's first secular, all-girl middle school.

This year the school grew to 52 students, including a graduating class of 16 eighth-graders -- all of whom were invited to speak at commencement and reflect on their experiences.

"The middle school years can be difficult, especially for girls," said Patricia Hearn, head of school.

"So often, girls who had been outgoing and confident begin to raise their hands less often, they don't run for the ball in gym class or they show some other signs of losing confidence. That is why this school exists: to make sure that doesn't happen to our girls."

Other schools, including Seattle Girls' School and Bellevue's Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, are trying to address these issues as well.

But it happened to be Lake Washington Girls Middle School that Seattle P-I photographer Meryl Schenker visited last fall for an assignment. She sensed something special.

Intrigued by the positive vibe and the exuberance of the students, Schenker returned throughout the school year to chronicle their heartfelt journey from feisty little girls to focused young women.

"I was just totally wowed by this place," Schenker said. "It is so different than any school I have visited in my 12 years at the P-I and so different than my school experience."

Schenker's photos convey a tiny slice of what she encountered over the months.

"People always say that middle school doesn't matter and you won't even remember the friends that you had," eighth-grader Tessa Tweet said, "but I think our school is different. At our school, you don't make middle school friends -- you make friends for life."

-- Cecelia Goodnow

8th grade play

2008-06-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

The Eighth Grade Play was performed at Theater Off Jackson on May 29 and 30, 2008.

The Adventuress

2008-04-09T16:47:00.001-07:00

View photos of the
7th grade Rites of Passage trip
aboard The Adventuress!

Thanks to Julie C. for the photos!
Buoy
Originally uploaded by jcolando

More Man of La Mancha Photos

2008-03-07T16:13:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Jacqui James for the photos!

Man of La Mancha

2008-03-07T13:54:00.000-08:00

Spirit Week at LWGMS

2008-02-28T15:42:00.001-08:00

Cowgirl & Southern Belle Day

Prom Day

Fuerza basketball wins on Valentines Day!

2008-02-15T09:22:00.001-08:00

It was a tight game...

Life in math class

2008-02-06T16:36:00.001-08:00

LWGMS students travel to Olympia

2008-02-06T14:44:00.001-08:00

On January 31, Lake Washington Girls Middle School students traveled to Olympia to participate in Have a Heart for Kids Day.

See more photos from Have a Heart for Kids Day!

LWGMS 8th graders win King County MLK essay contest

2008-01-23T16:18:00.000-08:00

Eighth graders Patricia and Audre won second and third place in the King County Civil Rights Commission's Martin Luther King Day essay contest.

See the King County page about the event (and more photos!)

Read the Seattle Post-Intelligencer article where they are quoted.

Alumnae Night

2007-12-07T17:02:00.000-08:00

Members of the Classes of 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, along with their families, attended an alumnae gathering on December 6, 2007.