New Humanities + STEM High School, L & E Academy, Launching in Kirkland

A new private high school, Leadership & Entrepreneurialism Academy—or L&E Academy--is  opening this fall in Kirkland, which will employ an integrated humanities and STEM approach, with a heavy emphasis on applied technology such as robotics.

Dr. Maureen O’Shaughnessy, co-founder and CEO of the new school, says the program will focus on getting kids active in their education in the classroom.

O’Shaughnessy calls the approach “personalized, innovative, and hands-on,” and says that she’s done extensive research to “synergize the best practices” in innovative education.

The program, which has space for 30 students in its first year in space rented at Northlake Unitarian in Kirkland, seeks to help students find “what drives them and what are their values,” O’Shaughnessy says.

Students get their lecture time via video lesson at home, and then come to school for active, participatory learning with the three teachers who will be the staff this year.

“The kids have already seen the lesson on video and we can go around and really teach and personalize,” O’Shaughnessy says. “In a way, this is a more difficult school, because you don’t get to show up and hide in the back of the classroom—it’s engaging students and we think it’s going to be empowering.”

O’Shaughnessy is no stranger to the leading edge of education. She served as principal for Kaplan Online’s middle and high school program in Washington until the organization discontinued its high school program here. She’s teamed up with Dr. Vicki Butler, who will run the STEM program at the school, and Heidi Burkett, who will be the school’s humanities director.

The trio had looked into launching as a charter school, but worried that the state is not fully backing the newly approved charter school model yet and they didn’t want to wait to launch their program.

“We have a sense of urgency” to bring their approach to the Puget Sound, O’Shughnessy says. Their goal is to ultimately bring the program to lower income areas to benefit students there.

“Our dream is not to have a team with 300 or 400 where the kids come to us, but to have pockets in different places—Everett, Bothell, Seattle—once we get up and running we’ll have the ability to reach out,” O’Shaugnessy says.

For now, though, as a private school, they wanted to locate where parents are more likely to be able to swing the startup’s tuition-based model at first. To get started, O’Shaughnessy, Butler, and Burkett are foregoing salaries this year to offer parents a reduced tuition cost of $11,000. Later, tuition will be $19,500, which O’Shaughnessy says is similar to other private schools in the area. In addition, the school can be flexible enough to accept students after school begins in September, so if students begin in a traditional school setting and realize it’s not the best approach for them, they can enter L&E Academy.

To learn more about L&E or to apply, visit the school’s website here. For more information on the school’s approach and philosophy, see Maureen O’Shaughnessy’s education blog, Thriving Teens, on Kirkland Patch.