Susan Lockyer retired as Alliance for Education's senior accountant at the beginning of May. She worked at the Alliance for seven years. Susan spent most of her time helping schools with their individual fundraising efforts. Principals, parents, and teachers appreciated Susan's sense of humor and her limitless patience in answering questions.

John Stanford International School Principal Karen Kodama said of Susan, "The word for Susan would be customer service! She was always so responsive to any questions I had, and always with a laughing, friendly attitude. Regarding any question, big or small, I never felt like an inconvenience. Susan was always a delight to work with. She is someone I will truly miss."

For Susan, working directly with schools was the highlight of her work, and something she was proud to put her accounting skills to. "What it comes down to is that I worked with great people," said Susan. "I will miss the people and the relationships."

Jay Iman is someone who also cares deeply about Seattle's students, parents, school district, and educational community. He is a graduate of former Seattle Public School Lincoln High School and spent nearly four decades securing funding in direct support of student academic achievement.

Jay is planning to retire as the district's grants manager at the end of August, and the Alliance would like to take this opportunity to recognize his important contributions.

In 1972, Seattle Public Schools created the Office of Grant Services to assist the district in aggressively competing for federal, state, city, and private funds. Since then, Jay has processed more than 3,000 grant awards totaling more than $1.5 billion! These funds are used to enhance resources for students and staff and are designed to improve academic achievement for all students and to reduce gaps in student achievement.

Bob Harmon, Assistant Superintendent for Special Programs at the State Office of Public Instruction , praised Jay for his contributions to Seattle Public Schools. "Jay is a rock. You can count on him. He is smart, analytical, insightful, and genuine. Seattle Public Schools is losing a key employee - he will be hard to replace!"

We at Alliance for Education could not agree more.

These inspiring words reflect core beliefs of Writers Workshop, developed at Columbia Teachers College and used successfully with students in grades K-8 for more than twenty years. Seattle Public Schools is currently piloting this approach in middle school classrooms in seven schools. Teachers receiving intensive training and ongoing coaching in the strategies guide students through a step-by-step process-learning to observe their lives and the world around them, and then collecting, drafting, revising, and publishing well-crafted writings.

At Dearborn Park Elementary, music teacher Helen Zhou teaches rhythm, instruments such as percussion, recorders, and keyboard, dance and movement, and singing. Every child in the school participates in these classes beginning in kindergarten and continuing into fifth grade.