This coming Saturday, Nov. 16, the Washington State Charter Schools Association (WA Charters) will be hosting a community forum for parents and families in the Highline, Burien community. The forum will be held at the Burien Community Center from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm, featuring lunch and childcare.

Exploring the question of what does a dream public school look like, the forum will feature discussions with the individuals and groups who have expressed interest in opening a public charter school for the community, including WA Charter fellow Maggie O’Sullivan and Summit Public Schools.

A longtime local public school leader who most recently was the principal of Mirror Lake Elementary School in Federal Way, Maggie hopes to open Rainier Prep a small, rigorous college preparatory public middle and high school. Summit, one of the highest-performing public school organizations in the country, hopes to open a local school based on their proven model that has sent 96 percent of students to four year universities.

Maggie O’Sullivan
Maggie O’Sullivan is an urban public educational leader with 18 years of teaching and leadership training. Maggie was most recently the principal of Mirror Lake Elementary School in Federal Way, Washington for four years. She began teaching at Foster High School in Tukwila, where she taught for six years before becoming a principal and beginning her role in public education administration.

Maggie is driven by her dedication to lead high-poverty schools to excellent student outcomes. She believes this success comes from knowing each student, both personally and academically, their families, and their strengths and weaknesses. While serving as principal at Mirror Lake Elementary School and adapting this mentality, Maggie led the school to consistently outperform state and district averages on reading and math tests. As a WA Charters Fellow, Maggie will be joining with community partners looking to found Rainier Prep, which will be a small, rigorous college preparatory public middle and high school located in South King County.

Maggie completed the Danforth Educational Leadership Program at the University of Washington, and holds two master’s degrees: a master of education from Stanford University and a master’s in liberal arts from Wesleyan University. Maggie is recognized for her impact in the education sector, and has received the OSPI Distinguished School Award, the OSPI Apple Award for Increasing Student Achievement, the Martin Luther King Award for Increasing Student Achievement and the Teacher of the Quarter King County.

Summit Public Schools
Summit Public Schools, a leading charter management organization serving diverse communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, operates six schools enrolling 1,600 students. Summit’s mission is to ensure that every student has the opportunity to not only attend, but succeed in, a four-year college or university. Summit is ranked consistently as having one of the top high school programs in the country. To date, nearly 100 percent of Summit graduates have been accepted to one or more four-year colleges and universities. In 2011, Newsweek listed Summit as one of the Top 10 Miracle Schools in the country and US News & World Report consistently ranks their flagship school in the top 100 public high schools in the nation.