EDUCATION COACHING AT A HIGHER LEVEL

OVER THE YEARS, there have been chance connections between Lakeside and the University of Washington. Graduates have gone on from Lakeside to compete for the Huskies, often returning to Lakeside to volunteer as coaches. Head of School Kai Bynum played football for UW in the late 1990s — where one of his coaches was current Lakeside head strength and conditioning coach Rick Huegli. But it wasn’t until Abe Wehmiller became director of athletics here in 2008 that something of a formal pipeline was created between Lakeside and the NCAA Division I Pac-12 Conference university located in Lakeside’s back yard. Over 2008-2009, Wehmiller earned a master’s degree in athletics administration from the UW College of Education’s Intercollegiate Athletic Leadership (IAL) program, and soon after began hiring IAL graduate students to intern at Lakeside. The relationship between the two institutions has only expanded since current Director of Athletics Chris Hartley took over in 2014.

In 30 years of working at independent schools, Hartley has learned that the best ideas and execution come from collaboration. “You build a relationship with people who are really good at what they do, and it creates opportunities to share ideas that would have maybe not come from anyone here,” Hartley says.

Under his leadership, Lakeside has become a go-to destination for IAL students to gain professional internships and hands-on experience; in return, Hartley and the coaches at Lakeside receive updates on the latest training and coaching ideas and best practices being taught in the master’s program.

A different kind of collaboration took place in 2020, a year scarred by the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests. During the fall semester, Hartley caught wind of a

Whether we are taking classes, bringing our athletes to watch Pac-12 competition, having our kids run on the indoor track at Dempsey… the UW resources are pretty amazing. Pedagogically, we have access to a multitude of ways of coaching, to cutting-edge ideas, and great examples of holistic teaching. Fifteen minutes away!”

— SALLY REVERE ’79, running program head and head varsity coach

webinar hosted by Alexes Harris, a UW professor of sociology and faculty athletics representative. The webinar focused on mass incarceration and how the U.S. criminal legal system disparately punishes poor people. Hartley invited Harris to share her insights and research with his coaching staff. He wanted them to better understand systemic racism in hopes of providing a learning space more representative of all students’ backgrounds. The webinar gave the coaches a shared framework and vocabulary for doing that work.

Professor Harris understands the value of that common understanding. With everyone on the same page, she says, “we can then engage in more fruitful partnerships, develop more inclusive environments, and design better policies to develop equitable, supportive communities.”

Last fall, Hannah Olson, director of the Center for Leadership in Athletics (CLA) at the UW and a leader in the IAL program, assisted with building a positive team culture on Lakeside’s girls volleyball team, a season in which they won the Washington state championship, not losing a single match the whole season. Hartley brought in Olson to facilitate open and honest conversations. “Hannah helped us navigate some difficult issues,” says Hartley, “to the point where they could be talked about, where frustrations were not just escalating. The work she did helped us move forward and let kids participate at a level where the season felt good.”

Olson enjoyed the chance to strengthen leadership and bring a different approach to a team’s dynamics. “An outside perspective is always so valuable,” she says.

In another example, running program head and cross-country and track coach Sally Revere ’79, who ran for UW in college, is one of the Lakeside coaches who have gone back and taken classes on leadership at the university. It was through UW that she met nutritionist Monica Van Winkle. Together, the two collaborated on a program of nutrition for the Lakeside running program.

“Ambitious coaching” is the CLA’s term for a holistic approach to individual and team instruction — one that improves sports performance and builds on life skills at the same time. Lakeside’s athletics program has embraced the UW ideology. Hartley hopes those ambitious coaching skills create a culture where all Lakeside student-athletes thrive in a positive, supportive, and comfortable environment.

— Shamaar Thomas

LAKESIDE SUMMER RESEARCH INSTITUTE (LSRI)

A Part Of The Scientific Community

SINCE THE SUMMER of 2018, the Lakeside Summer Research Institute (LSRI) has provided Lakeside students with the rare opportunity to pursue real-world science through collaborative mentorship, conduct and present research in professional settings, and connect with a wider community of scientists in the greater Seattle area.

The monthlong program began when Michael Town, then a science teacher at Lakeside, realized that the schedule of the regular school year limited students’ abilities to engage in longterm projects. Combined with a noticeable demand from the student body for more STEM internships, the realization spurred Town to create the LSRI in partnership with Lakeside’s Service Learning and Outdoor programs — and with scientists at the Northwest Avalanche Center (NWAC). The collaboration was unique among area high schools: During the school year, Lakeside students studied avalanche science and collected data (including during annual outdoor trips to Mount Baker), then worked with NWAC scientists in the summer, who incorporated the data in the formulation of their avalanche forecasts.

This summer, the LSRI will begin a new partnership with Earth and Space Research (ESR), a Seattle-based nonprofit. With the addition of a second mentor, Susan Howard, the LSRI can double its original class size to 14 students. Throughout the program, students, working with scientists from ESR and the University of Washington, will conduct research using cutting-edge methods employed by professional scientists to study paleoclimates, Antarctic ice shelves, and weather at Mount Baker.

The hands-on nature of the program offers students opportunities that are hard to get in an ordinary classroom environment. The extended, focused time frame allows students to think about problems in-depth and develop crucial analytical skills, and the longitudinal nature of the program creates the chance to build off the work conducted in previous iterations. The small class size fosters close collaboration between mentors and students, and the program’s professional network brings students and their work into Seattle’s greater scientific community.

Looking toward the future, Town hopes that the LSRI can expand its program to reach more students, either by increasing its summer capacity or integrating material into regular science classes.

The relationship is mutually beneficial. As Howard notes, the mentors help students build skills necessary to conduct real-world scientific research, and the students offer fresh perspectives and creative new ways to approach the work. The partnership and the practical application of science give the students something powerful at a young age: the potential to contribute to the world in a very real sense.

GLOBAL ONLINE ACADEMY (GOA) EXPANDING