In 1990 six Bellevue teachers* came together to envision and propose a new public school in the Bellevue School District: The International School.

Working on our own time during the first year, and later on partial planning release, the six of us hammered out instructional and program values that would set the standard for what public schools can aspire to become.

Despite resistance from teachers and administrators, we won school board support as well as Washington State start up funding ($300k) to develop the program. This school is now in its thirty first year of operation.

At the conclusion Bellevue International’s sixth year, and as the last of the founders remaining at the school, I accepted an offer from Kirkland parents and district administrators to create a “clone” of B.I.S. in the neighboring Lake Washington school district: Lake Washington (Kirkland) International Community School.**

These standardized results were achieved in the earliest years of each school–at a time when test score inflation had yet to become commonplace. Perhaps more important, these scores were achieved by school programs that were new, untried, built on promises, and which had yet to acquire a reputation for academic rigor and success.

As a result, our first students came from all backgrounds and ability levels: the few who were gifted, the many who were normally ambivalent but curious, and those who had enjoyed little success in public school, but who enrolled in our program nevertheless–as a last resort.

We did not get these results by preparing for tests by any means.

Our belief was that expert instruction, coupled with vibrant, participatory classrooms would be sufficient preparation for any test that might come our way.

Standardized testing was but a brief interruption of our more important educational journey–the journey toward discovery and growth, toward building student confidence, understanding and the ability to evaluate and to think.

These scores are paired with in-district and state level scores on the same tests. Since the enrollment during the earliest years at both schools matched the demographics of larger in-district programs, these scores demonstrate what schools with a vibrant teaching culture can achieve.

I invite you to follow the links in this website in order to learn more about why these programs have been so successful.

* Bellevue I.S. founding teachers: Rick Hart, Patricia McLean, Rita Lowy, Terry LaRussa Banton, Karen Kurle, Bruce Saari.

**Inaugural teaching staff at ICS: John Heil (Science), Damaris Bartlett (Spanish), Andrew Ivy (International Studies), Sophia Hindley (Fine Arts), Ella Johnston (Math), and Bruce Saari (Humanities).