As the school year winds down, Trish Millines Dziko is focused on helping students at Washington Middle School in Seattle prep for their big STEM expo. It’s an exciting culmination of their hard work. But it’s also bittersweet.
Washington Middle School three years ago entered a partnership with the Technology Access Foundation (TAF), an education nonprofit led by Millines Dziko, and began incorporating TAF’s pedagogy at the racially and economically diverse school.
This spring, Seattle Public Schools announced that due to budget cuts, it can no longer afford the program. The June STEM expo could be the school’s last.
“That’s what makes it frustrating — that money got in the way of it — because there was a lot of progress being made by both teachers and students,” Millines Dziko told GeekWire.
TAF offers an equity-driven STEM program focused on critical thinking and project-based learning. It incorporates technology into instruction of all subjects and connects students with tech-related companies. At its core, the Seattle nonprofit aims to build inclusive, nurturing environments with an emphasis on fostering relationships between teachers and students.
The disintegration of the partnership after just three years highlights the difficulty of implementing pioneering programs at public schools amid tight budgets and student populations with wide-ranging needs. It raises questions about what viable alternatives exist, and how to pick up the pieces when an initiative falls apart.
“We appreciate our TAF partners,” the district said in an emailed statement. “They have been understanding and are making every effort to work within our current budget constraints. We will continue to work with TAF to determine the next steps.”
Though TAF is leaving the Seattle middle school, its efforts continue elsewhere in the region:
- Since 2008, TAF has co-managed a sixth- to 12th-grade school with Federal Way Public Schools. The program started as the 300-student TAF Academy and in 2017 merged with an existing school, nearly doubling in size and becoming TAF@Saghalie.
- TAF has a less-intensive model called the STEMbyTAF School Transformation program. Six public schools from three districts south of Seattle are participating in the program, which provides coaching in the TAF approach.
- TAF offers multiple professional development opportunities for educators. It also provides support for teachers of color and anti-racist leadership.
Margit McGuire, former director and a professor of teacher education at Seattle University, said the university has sent students from its master’s program to teach in schools implementing TAF programs. She was “heartbroken” to learn TAF was leaving Washington Middle School.
“The sad part for Seattle is it could be a model for other schools,” McGuire said. “It’s such a missed opportunity.”
TAF’s path
Before launching TAF, Millines Dziko worked 15 years as a developer, designer and manager at Microsoft and other tech companies. TAF began in 1996 as an after-school tech internship program in a racially diverse neighborhood not far from Washington Middle School.
Over time, Millines Dziko and others with TAF saw the need for greater support for disadvantaged students, inspiring the idea of bringing TAF into the public schools themselves.
It’s a daunting task. Public school budgets can be tight. Washington Middle School, for example, receives roughly $20,000 per student, according to state data. The annual tuition for private, non-parochial middle schools in Seattle exceeds $40,000 and the institutions generally serve students with fewer educational challenges.
It’s also difficult to measure success for programs centered on project-based learning and not standardized tests.
TAF@Saghalie, which has 80% of students qualifying as low income and nearly one-quarter whose primary language is not English, boasts an impressive high school graduation rate of more than 91%. But its 2022 test scores were low — only 16% of eighth-grade students met math standards and 27% of 10th graders met that mark.
At Boze Elementary School in Tacoma, a TAF transformation school since 2015, only 15% of fifth-grade students last year met math standards, though before the pandemic the percentage was double that (schools nationwide reported plummeting scores last year due to COVID). Some 60% of Boze students are low income, and 15% are experiencing homelessness.
Millines Dziko counters that school test scores are a poor measure of achievement — a view shared by other education experts. Testing opponents argue the exams are snapshots in time that narrowly assess what a student is capable of and what they know.
“We’re really preparing kids to evolve into the adults that every single company, every single [venture capitalist] says they want,” Millines Dziko said of TAF. “We’re building whole human beings. Not just test-takers.”
With the TAF partnership at Washington Middle School cut short and one year disrupted by COVID, it’s hard to determine its impact on students or guess at how it might have played out over time.
Brynne Veitengruber, co-president of the Washington Middle School PTSA and mom of an eighth grader, said she appreciated the community events TAF organized and is grateful for the extra staff and high quality teachers that came with the program. But she also pointed to bumps in the rollout, particularly in delivering math instruction.
That said, she’s anxious about losing the resources. Other parents likewise lamented TAF’s departure.
“I am worried about next year with no TAF,” she said. At Washington Middle School, “it’s hard [even] with the extra help.”
Complications and costs
So what went wrong at Washington Middle School?
The situation was complicated before TAF arrived. The middle school previously offered a program targeting highly capable students drawn from across south Seattle, and it simultaneously served kids from neighboring, academically under-performing elementary schools.
Seattle Public Schools, meanwhile, was restructuring district-wide its program for highly capable students, with the objective of making it more racially and socioeconomically equitable. Some parents, already concerned about these changes, were worried if TAF would meet their kids’ needs.
Administrative difficulties also hindered the initiative. While the arrangement was structured as a collaboration, there was evidence some of the public school leaders didn’t welcome the TAF partnership, according to Washington Middle School parents. To families, it was unclear who was accountable and providing oversight of the arrangement.
Then there were financial issues. The initial joint operating agreement between TAF and Seattle Public Schools estimated it would cost the district an additional $1.1 million over three years to boost staffing levels to fit TAF’s model. The nonprofit expected to spend $1.8 million of its own funding over that time.
In the end, the district spent closer to $3 million, according to public records, and TAF invested $1.9 million.
Many schools around the state are facing budget cuts.
“Money is so tight. The district heavily subsidized the program, and that makes it unsustainable in Seattle,” said Cliff Meyer, who was co-president of the Washington Middle School PTSA from 2018 to 2020.
In addition to TAF’s departure, the school is making other cuts. That includes axing a music teacher, which likely means losing its renowned jazz band and intermediate orchestra class — a move families have publicly protested.
“It doesn’t escape us that it’s expensive,” Millines Dziko said of TAF’s approach. “The challenge for us is that we as a country have been trying to do public education on the cheap forever and expecting different results.”
‘We don’t have the political will’
TAF’s ambition now is to grow the number of transformation partner schools — a significantly less expensive option than the co-managed school model, according to past reports from TAF.
“We as a society are not willing to invest in the schools that really make a difference.”
– Margit McGuire, professor at Seattle University
The organization is working with six transformation schools and aims to add a maximum of three more per year. A few years back, it aspired to reach 60 schools in 20 years — a target it won’t reach. The process is slow, Millines Dziko said, and requires upfront relationship building with districts and teachers.
The nonprofit does not plan any future collaborations with Seattle Public Schools.
In the meantime, the job of public schools arguably keeps getting harder. Students are struggling with mental health damage potentially caused by social media; the legacy of disruption from COVID; political, economic and climate anxiety; and a continued emphasis on standardized tests that can encumber outside-the-box educational solutions.
In 2018, TAF won the Geeks Give Back honor at the GeekWire Awards for its efforts.
Seattle University’s McGuire said she sees promise in the TAF model — if it gets the financial support needed.
“This is the incredibly sad part: that we as a society are not willing to invest in the schools that really make a difference,” she said. “We don’t have the political will to do that.”
Editor’s note: Story updated to correct Margit McGuire’s title.
